Uzumaki Lost in the Mist
by Winged Kon
Summary: The Sandaime Hokage is concerned for Naruto's well being, the villagers despise the blond greatly. So what if Naruto lived in Kiriakure instead of Konoha. How will Naruto change, will he go for the Mizukage, what will he do without ramen! Find out!
1. Trade Off

**9526: Hey my fans! Here's my new story. I'm not quite done with ****The Lion& the Fox****, but I had this idea in my head for a while and after weeks of formulating the story's plot I came up with the first chapter. And don't worry; I'll still keep ****The Lion & the ****Fox updated. So Let's rock this!**

Chapter 1: Trade Off

Hiruzen looked out of his office. He took puffs of his pipe once in a while to ease the migraine he was receiving, the smoke of the tobacco enveloping his body with a slight cloud of smoke. Today's events had drained him of his energy. The Hokage raised the parchment in his hand to his view; with a sigh he reread the civilian disturbance overview. Another villager attempted to harm Naruto again. The villager was put into jail for assault of a fellow villager of Konoha. Saying the villager was furious would be an understatement, the angry villager had cursed the blond for what he had done. No matter how hard the blond tried to rub his eyes to cease the river of tears the flowed from his eyes. Just as he was taken away, the convict cursed the Sarutobi's name which made the sentence even more severe.

"This is happening too many times" the Hokage said to himself. No matter how many laws he made to create the blond, it seems as though the villagers won't even take to consideration of the consequences. He thought of maybe that Mizuki was organizing the harassment that the boy was receiving but he denied all accusations. Even though he denied everything that was said to him, he made sure that the chunnin was being investigated. So far nothing was founded, he knew that someone, somewhere in his village he or she was manipulating the villagers hate to attack the blond. He needed a permanent solution that would ensure Naruto's safety, but the question is, what could he do?

Then it hit him, an idea came to him in a flash. In seconds, the idea manifested into a plan then to a blueprint. The Sandaime Hokage walked towards briskly to the buzzer found on his mahogany desk and pressed it. "Aiki-san, please send a message to the Yondaime Mizukage, wishing to meet of matters of importance to both our countries" he instructed through the buzzer.

"Hokage-sama?" the secretary asked, confirming what she had just heard. This was indeed a shock, ever since the war, Kirigakure and Konoha were on neutral terms, why in the world would he now to make a treaty with Kiri.

"Please do not question my authority, I need to meet with him" The Sandaime answered a little bit sternly.

"Hai, Hokage-sama!"

-Scene Change-

_One Week Later:_

Sarutobi walked through the halls of the Hokage tower, heading towards the conference room. He was certainly happy that the Mizukage decided to meet with him. Just as he was at the door of the conference room, the old man took a deep breath before went into the room. The conference room was a small oval shaped room and there was a matching circular table in the center of said room, a door was in the back that led to the back exit... Around the table were his former teammates back when he was a mere gennin trying to find his place in the shinobi world; was Homura, Koharu, and Danzo. The three of them looked sternly at the Hokage.

"Hiruzen, reconsider what you are doing here" Homura suggested to his teammate. "We are about to make an alliance with Kirigakure. They could easily back stab us if we let them in with open arms. Not only that but they have the Kiri no Shinobigatana Nananin Shū in their arsenal." Sarutobi sighed and sat between his council. He simply nodded his answer.

"Why do you wish to even establish an alliance with Kiri?" Danzo bluntly asked his rival.

The Hokage reached inhaled deeply into the pipe and exhaled a cloud of smoke. "Sanctuary for Uzumaki Naruto" he answered. The elders eyes widened in shock, silence began to overtake the room. Not a single sound left anyone's mouth, as they clearly heard the Sandaime Hokage's phrase. Finally the cloak of silence was shredded as Danzo chuckled. The crackling laughter brought the rest of the elders of their thoughts.

"Surely you jest, Hokage-sama" Danzo said, regaining his composure quickly. "The jinchūriki can't be trusted to a new ally, if Kiri agrees with the terms. The container of the Kyubbi no yoko mustn't fall into enemy hands, let alone Kiri's power hungry hands. If anything should be done about the jinchūriki of the Kyubbi no Yoko, it should be trained to be an agent of Konoha. What even possessed you to even consider such an idea? Maybe you should choose a successor and retire my friend; old age has clouded your judgment."

"Danzo, you know better than to talk to your superior with such insubordance" Koharu scolded her ally. The Hokage raised his hand to stop the two from bickering. The elders backed off from each other, and respectively looked at their leader.

"I understand your concern Danzo, but the villagers' uneasiness of Naruto is growing exponentially. The attacks against the boy are growing more and more vicious. I will be damned if I let you change Naruto into your own dog. Besides, Naruto and many children around his age will be attending the Ninja Academy soon, and many parents will be reluctant to send their children to the Academy with Naruto's history. With the shortage of possible gennin, we will have a shortage of future shinobi in general. Are you ready to have our shinobi forces be dramatically cut down, Danzo?" Sarutobi asked critically. Before anyone could counter the Hokage's claim, the back doors widely opened to reveal two men between the open doors.

On the right was a man with black hair going to the base of his neck and a black mustache that sprouted out to its respective sides, that only went about a couple inches from his face that was only about a couple of inches long. He had cobalt black eyes behind round spectacles with a couple of wrinkles around his eyes that revealed his old age. He wore a blue vest over his bleached white robe with golden edges on the ends; on the back of the robe was the kanji that stood for Council. The man on the left was dressed in a very similar robe of the elder Sarutobi, but with a purple finish and on the hat was the kanji for water. The man had short olive green hair with part of his hair growing to growing to cover his right eyebrow. He had purple eyes but with no pupils, on his left cheek was a line of stiches went to the near edge of his left eye. The man looked as if he was only 30 years old.

The nearly arrived kage looked at the Hokage "Hokage-sama" he said simply nodding his greeting to the elder kage.

Sarutobi looked at the young kage and smiled "Ah Yagura-san, thank you for seeing me at such a short notice" the Hokage greeted back.

"Why have you called me?"

The Sandaime smiled at the current Mizukage, it would be tough to win over him but he had to do this for Naruto. The boy had too bright of a future for it to be dashed away by the villagers of Konoha. He would've trained the boy personally, but he would have gotten harsh criticism by his villagers and would only worsen the treatment the blond was getting. "I have called you to make a peace treaty with Kirigakure" the old man said.

"We only came here to see what you can offer Kiri, through this peace treaty" the councilman said to the Konoha representatives as he sat across from Danzo, who glared at the man with his one revealed eye. The man stared back at the ROOT leader with a matching intensity. Yagura looked at his friend and smiled "We must be nice to our hosts, Harusame" the Mizukage chuckled, while sitting next to the Kiri counsel representative and Koharu but across from the Sandaime Hokage.

Harusame sighed "Sometimes you're too polite for your own good" he protested.

Yagura turned towards the Hokage "Before we talk about the requirements for us to establish the treaty, I'm curious" the Mizukage said. "Why do you intend to make peace with us? As I took it, you never showed any interest in us. So why would you, without a warning want to be allies with us?" the young man's eyes lacked emotion, his face seemed to be kind, but his eyes were cold.

"Uzumaki Naruto" Hiruzen answered simply. The Kiri men looked at the Hokage.

"Uzumaki Naruto, is the jinchūriki of the Kyubbi no Yoko. He is constantly harassed by my villagers, it's as though the villagers do not even fear the laws I place on them, it seems making the punishments more severe is not taking the effect I wish it would. I would have the boy adopted into my family, but if I do my own family will be dragged into this matter. I cannot let both my grandson and Naruto suffer because of the Kyubbi" the Sarutobi continued his statement. The old man clenched his liver spotted fist tightly. A small haze of smoke released from his mouth as he exhaled deeply.

The Mizukage propped his head from the palm of his hands. "So you want me to take him with me to Kiri, is that correct?" he concluded.

"How do we know it isn't a trap?" Harusame asked bluntly. "For all we know, the jinchūriki could be unstable and letting him in our village will be like detonating a bomb on ourselves. You will not only take down a powerful enemy, but gain more ground. That ground can come in handy if Iwagakure decides to finish the war they have started."

"We would do no such thing!" Koharu retorted. How dare this outsider talk down Konoha, the strongest of the shinobi nations, with so little respect?

"Give me one reason why you wouldn't? You could easily have done it!" Harusame shot back at the female member of the Konoha elders. Shouts of arguments went back and forth between Kiri and Konoha counsel representatives, while the kages stayed still, watching their respective colleagues act like children from the academy. The quarrel went on for several leagues of minutes, until the temple on the Hokage became too big to ignore. The Hokage intertwined his chakra with his vocal cords, through his nearly perfect chakra control.

"QUIET!!" the Hokage roared. The room suddenly grew deathly silent, not even the sounds outside of the Hokage Castle entered the room. It was as though even reality froze from the anger of Konoha's Professor. "Yagura-san, do you have anything to say?"

The Mizukage toyed with a pencil on the table. He looked up, violet met obsidian. He sighed "I personally understand what it feels like to be a jinchūriki, for I had the Sanbi no Kyodaigame sealed within me." The Hokage's eyes snapped in shock, his eyes wanting for him to explain the reason why he had placed the word "had" in his sentence. This matter was something that would later be examined, but until then he would have to be content with what the Mizukage said.

"Yes, the Sanbi was removed by my father, the Sandaime Mizukage, when I was only 3 years old, by creating his own seal. It is indeed unfortunate that he died due to chakra exhaustion of the executing of the seal. Our researchers are currently looking for my father notes on the seal, we have evidence that if we figure out how the seal works, we can further advance to extent and how thorough our seal techniques and ninjutsu." The Mizukage said with a hint of arrogance laced in his words.

Before another word can be said, the main door swung open allowing beams of light to hit the people in the room. A small boy was between the door looking at Kiri and Konoha members of a high caliber. The boy had golden blond hair with 3 whisker marks dragged across each of his cheeks. He wore a plain white tee-shirt with blue shorts. His shoes clacked on the ground as he ran towards the Hokage.

"Hey! Old man you were going to teach me how to summon that monkey you used to beat up that guy who hit me a week ago today. Come on let's go!" the blond said while tugging the old man's robes. Hiruzen looked at the boy with an amusing look on his face, as he watched the blond desperately trying to pull him off the chair. The Hokage placed his hand on top of the boys head.

"Naruto, didn't I tell you I would teach you that technique when you become the Hokage?" Sarutobi asked the child, who crossed his arms and began to pout. The Hokage laughed at the boy's disappointment.

Danzo however didn't take kindly to the unexpected interruption. "How dare you, you insulate boy interrupt a treaty meeting. If I were the Hokage, you would be punished severely" Danzo hissed at the blond. Naruto turned around to the ROOT leader and stuck out his 7 year old tongue at the shinobi branch leader.

"Bite me Cyclops" he shot back at Danzo. A large tick mark appeared on the elder's temple. A laugh cut Danzo off from the tongue lashing Danzo prepared to give Naruto everyone including Naruto turned to the source of the laughter. Yagura was blocking his mouth with the inside of his left fist, to cease his laughter. Finally, when he calmed down he smiled at the blond. Naruto smiled back, due to how warm the smile received. He only got that smile from Iruka-san, the old man, Tschui-san, Ayame-san, Asuma-san, and the old man. Yet here was someone, who he never met in his life giving him such a warm smile.

"You must be Uzumaki Naruto, am I correct?"

Naruto nodded his answer. "Yep, that's me. Uzumaki Naruto, Godaime Hokage. Soon, will be known as the best shinobi of the Konoha." The blond boasted. Yagura continued to smile.

"I hope you're ready for the paperwork that comes with the job" Yagura warned the blond jokingly.

"Don't worry, I'll just summon that monkey the old man did; when he fights bad guys, to do it for me. So that way I could go and eat more ramen!" Naruto cheered. Everyone excluding Danzo laughed at the boy's plan, Sarutobi laughing the hardest. He remembered when he first was instated as the Hokage, and tried the stunt Naruto suggested. That had earned him a whack on the back of the head by a floating Bo staff, who glared holes in the Hokage's forehead for weeks.

Naruto looked left and right to find all the old people laughing at him. He hadn't figured out what was so funny, that caused everyone to laugh. "Whats so funny?!" he yelled.

Sarutobi looked at the blond, after settling down his laughter. "Please, Naruto, we are discussing important matters about the future of Konoha. Don't you want other countries to see how great Konoha is?" he asked. The boy nodded his head furiously. "Now, step outside while I finish up this meeting. If you're good, then I might treat you to some ramen."

Immediately, the blond's face lit up and mockingly saluted his leader. "I am at your command" the blond said with a goofy smile, trying his best to act like robot but his constant giggling ruined the act. With that said, the blond ran out the door he came from. Hiruzen sighed in relief that he was able to get Naruto out of the room in less than 5 minutes. "So what is your answer, Yagura-san?" the Hokage turned the focus to the Mizukage who too had his mind set back on the meeting.

For minutes, the Mizukage stayed silent. All eyes were on the young kage, as he was in deep thought. A bead of sweat drop from the elder kage's face. The water trickled into the beard and finally splotched on the ground. Just as the Professor of Konoha began to add into his case for the young Uzumaki, Harusame looked at him and slightly shook his head as if to not interrupt the green-haired man's train of thought.

Finally, Yagura raised his head from his gathered fists. By unclutching one of his fists, he motioned Harusame to come near him. Harusame sighed in annoyance and got up from his seat and strolled towards his leader. The Kiri councilman leaned over so that the Mizukage can whisper something in his ear. For only minutes, exchanges of sentences where shared between the two. After just 2 minutes the two broke away and with a nod from the kage, Harusame returned to his seat.

"My colleague and I have discussed your proposal; we have decided that we will take the boy into our village." Yagura announced. Eyes snapped open in surprised excluding Harusame, but for different reasons. Everyone whose eyes were open, were simply surprised, while Danzo was in disbelief. Danzo clenched his fist tightly in rage. He was certain that Yagura would decline the treaty due to what he did to his own academy students, giving Danzo the chance he needed to persuade the other council chairmen to train Uzumaki to be the ultimate killing machine. And now, Sarutobi Hiruzen threw another wrench in his plans.

"I have only one proposition, that when Naruto comes to the decision of becoming a Kiri shinobi that you will personally teach him." The Hokage said.

"That can be arranged" the Mizukage countered.

The Sandaime Hokage simply smirked, looks like fortune smiled down upon him today. Koharu cleared her throat to get the attention of everyone in the room. "Sarutobi, the decision of a treaty must first be accepted by the ninja counsel. Since Homura, Danzo and I represent the ninja counsel the decision rests on our vote." The former kunoichi reminded her former obnoxious teammate, whose heart sank from hearing her say that. She turned towards the other representatives. "Homura, Danzo how do you feel about the treaty of Kiri, which gives them full custody of Uzumaki Naruto?"

"I believe that relying on Kiri to take care of Uzumaki Naruto's personal affairs is incredibly humiliating. The treaty should be thrown out of question" Danzo said coldly. Sarutobi sighed at the old war hawk's statement. This was way too predictable. He looked towards Koharu and Homura. It was all on them.

"I disagree with you. The complaints about Naruto have been only piling up lately. Maybe relocating him will be best for Konoha and him" Koharu stated. There was only one person left that would determine Naruto's future. It all depended on Homura's decision. Would Naruto stay in Konoha, only to be eaten alive by the villagers' rage; or he could go to Kiri with the possibility to living a peaceful life, without worrying about the villagers trying to make his life a living Hell. Sarutobi inhaled a deep amount of his pipe in anticipation of waiting for his teammate to come to a decision.

Homura sighed "Danzo, regularly I would agree with you when it comes to making sure we could use the Kyubbi jinchūriki as a weapon" he said. Sarutobi exhaled a grand amount of smoke in disappointment. "But I will have to disagree with you on this matter. As Hiruzen stated before, keeping Naruto in Konoha will have a giant pull on the amount of potential shinobi. Also, by having Kiri as an ally we will have access to naval exports. So I agree with the signing of the treaty."

Sarutobi smirked; looks like Naruto will be leaving Konoha. Yagura saw this and his face went from as cold, to a puzzled look. "Sarutobi-san, I have only question left for you to answer for me." The Hokage looked up.

"Won't you feel any remorse what so ever when the boy leaves? You and the young Uzumaki seem very close. And I understand that you can't adopt him into your family, since you will be involving them into an affair that they have no business with. Why are you prepared to easily hand him over to us?" he asked. The Hokage looked back.

"I made a promise to his father to give Naruto, to give him what is best for him." Sarutobi answered, which just made Yagura looked more confused. "It seems that giving Naruto a new home to live in will be best for him. So that he could have a fresh start" Yagura sighed.

"We might as well start working on this treaty" Harusame said tiredly. Ideas went through the room, of the requirements of the treaty.

-Scene Change-

The sun was setting and Naruto was sitting on a bridge near the only restaurant that would accept him. His body rested on the bridge's sides, while his legs were kicking the air in boredom. The old man was supposed to treat him to a meal of ramen, but he couldn't find the old man anywhere. He tried to enter the room numerous of times, but that lucky entrance to the meeting room was long gone. He sighed and decided to walk towards the ramen shop, maybe Teuchi and Ayame would want to hang with him until the Hokage showed up.

"Hey Teuchi" Naruto said while he entered the kueass pushing the flap open as he did. "Can I hang with you until the old man shows u-"his sentence was never completed when he saw the man he had been waiting for almost the whole day? The Hokage was sitting in a seat with his pipe still in his mouth, looking at the golden haired boy.

"Naruto what took you so long? For a minute, I thought you didn't care for ramen anymore" the old man jested while smiling at the boy.

Naruto looked the Hokage in surprise. Here he was, walking around the town killing time and it looked as though he had been waiting for the boy for about an hour. "You old fart! I've wanted ramen all day!" the boy yelled. This made the Sarutobi crackle with laughter.

"Why don't you sit down and order your meal already" he suggested. Naruto snorted and took a seat right next to the Hokage.

"One large miso!" Naruto called to the cook.

"Hai, pa one large miso!" Ayame repeated to her father. Teuchi walked in the back of the restaurant to get the order ready.

"So Naruto what did you do while waiting for me all day?" Hiruzen asked the boy. Naruto crossed his arms and began to ponder on what he had done this afternoon.

"Well, I tried to get back in. But those bakas, Izumo and Kotetsu, stopped me every time. So I got bored and decided to hang around at the playground. I didn't feel like sticking around that long so I wanted to hang around the bridge." Naruto explained. The boy looked down at his shoes, as though something was bothering him. Sarutobi saw this and sighed. _The villagers again_, he concluded to himself. The boy's mood changed when his order appeared in front of him. The aroma put a smile on the blonds face as he licked his lips in anticipation. "Ramen, ramen, I love ramen!" Naruto sang and began to inhale the food.

The Hokage chuckled at how fast the blond was eating his food. "Naruto there's something I want to talk to you about" he announced after minutes of observing. Naruto pried his eyes from the ramen bowel and looked at the Hokage. His mouth full of a stream of ramen noodles. When he turned to the Hokage, beads of the ramen soup spluttered everywhere. The Hokage wiped his face from the noodles.

"It's not safe here."

Naruto cocked his head to the side and slurped up the last of the noodles in his mouth. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"You have to leave Konoha." The Hokage said, his eyes filled with sadness. He knew this talk was going to happen, but he had no idea it would be this hard.

"I don't wanna leave!" Naruto cried out. He looked in the ramen bowel that only held the soup. His reflection showed in the soup. His sad face looking back at him. "If this is about crying in the courtroom, I'm sorry."

"This isn't about what happened in the courtroom. It's for your own safety" the old man continued.

Naruto snapped his head back up at Hiruzen. "I'll be safe with you" he pleaded.

"Naruto, don't worry. I found you a home far away from the villagers. They won't be able to touch you." Hiruzen explained. "Please Naruto; don't make this harder than this has to be."

"No! I'm not leaving! No, no, no, no, NO!" Naruto screamed. He felt his arms tighten under pressure. He saw Hiruzen was holding his arms together. With a swift pull, Naruto was resting on the Hokage's chest.

"I'll miss you, Naruto" Naruto's eyes opened. Muffled cries echoed around the Ichiraku Ramen Bar.

-Scene Change-

The sun was up as the Hokage was facing a small group near the north gate of the village. The group consisted of Yagura without his formal Mizukage robes. He wore black baggy pants with a just as black short sleeved shirt. Over his black clothing, was a small green robe that was wrapped around the clothing. He had a green sash around his waist; over it was the Kiri headband. Beside the Mizukage, was Harusame dressed up as he was in the meeting. The two was side by side with 2 Kiri chunnin at the sides. Between the Mizukage and Kiri's chief councilman was a certain blond haired boy. Strapped to his back was a blue book bag, which contained all his clothing; which wasn't much.

Yagura stretched out his arm towards the Hokage "I hope the meeting will be the beginning of fortunate events between Konoha and Kiri" he said with a smile. The Hokage looked at his hand and stretched out his own to meet the other kage's hand.

"As do I" Sarutobi said simply while shaking his hand. Naruto looked at the two kages. He looked down on his chest to see a necklace with a black pendant that had the kanji for fire.

_Flashback:_

"_Yagura-san will be taking you to Kiri" Hiruzen announced to the blond. Naruto wiped the tears from his face._

"_Who's Yagura?" Naruto asked._

_Hiruzen exhaled the cloud of smoke from his pipe. "The Mizukage, Naruto" he answered. Naruto looked down to his feet, he kind of understood why he had to leave, but he didn't want to. _

"_That sounds far" Naruto complained. "I'm scared."'_

_The Hokage sighed for the 5__th__ time. He had to get Naruto to corporate, but how? That's when an idea came to his head. He reached from the back of his head and untied a necklace around his neck. When he was done untying it, he presented it to Naruto. The blond looked at the necklace. The rope was slick black; it was holding a black pendant that was the kanji for fire._

"_What's that?" Naruto asked._

"_It's a necklace that was given to me by my father. True, he wasn't a shinobi he wanted me to have it for good luck. When I wear this necklace, I feel like I'm connected to Konoha, even though I would be in enemy territory far away from the village" the Hokage answered the boy's question. "I will still be attached to my village."_

_The Hokage motioned for Naruto to come closer. The boy approached the elder and bowed his head. The Hokage leaned over to tie the necklace. When he was done, Naruto broke away and put his fist on his sides._

"_So how do I look?" he asked confidently._

_Sarutobi smiled "Like a boy touched by the Will of Fire." He said and touched the necklace. "As long as you have this on, you will always be connected to Konoha."_

_End of Flashback_

Naruto ran into the Hokage's arms. "I'll miss you old man" he said while hugging the Sandaime Hokage. Hiruzen eyes opened in shock and hugged the boy back. "Remember Naruto……"

"The Will of Fire will always be in me" Naruto said finishing the Hokage's sentence with a smile on his face. Naruto pulled away from the kage. "Don't worry old man; I'm going to come back. So you better be ready to give me that hat when I comeback." Naruto pumped his fist in the air, Yagura smiled at the blond's antics.

"Come now Naruto-kun, we will be leaving now" Yagura said. Naruto smiled and took the Mizukage's hand. Yagura led him away from the village gates with Harusame at his side, followed by the Kiri chunnin. Hiruzen watched as the blond along with his new ally walked away, the boy's blond hair swishing as he took his steps. Never before has the old man felt his heart being pulled in two. A chunk of himself was walking away from him in the form of a blond child. Hiruzen brought his hands together and clamped them, and quickly made a quick prayer for the blond; wishing him safe journeys.

_Naruto, I wish you happiness in Kirigakure. I wish for you to have the life that you deserved there, maybe someday the villagers will regret their treatment towards you_, The Sandaime Hokage walked away with his robes whistling through the wind. As he strolled, a single tear trickled down his cheek and slowly dropped to the ground.

-Scene Change-

As the Kiri group walked through the woods, the Yondaime Mizukage looked at the sun that was being partially blocked by the mist that enveloped the terrain. The ray of the sun touched his face warming the side of his face. Before he could think of anything, he felt tugging on his green scarf. The elder blond turned to the source to see his new villager beside him with an innocent face.

"Yagura-san, what does Kiri look like?"

Yagura look at his guards who stopped their pace, making the whole group halt any further advancement. Naruto looked at the Mizukage to find out what was happening. The guards made a long stream of hand seals, chakra pulsing through each seal. Naruto turned his face towards the guards, his eyes widened in admiration of how cool they looked. The guards ended on the ram seal "**Kai!**" they called.

Slowly, the mist in front of them began to thin out as though there was a door made of air just opened up to the group. Naruto looked at his feet to notice he was at the edge of a very shallow hill. Naruto took a step back, rocks slide down the hummock. Yagura looked at Naruto and outstretched his arm towards the air over the ledge "This is Kirigakure" he announced to the newcomer.

Naruto looked over the ledge to find that a village resided at the ledge. All of the cylindrical shaped buildings hung at the sky. The mist draped over the town in a slight mist that wasn't as heavy as the mist that the group encountered at their week journey. The hidden village left Naruto breathless, Konoha was never this wonderful to look. The only time it came near was the annual cherry blossom festival when the trees were all painted pink by nature.

"Am I going to live here?" Naruto finally said after minutes of admiring the village. Yagura nodded and began to walk down the hill that will lead them to the village gates.

-End Chapter-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


	2. Teachings of Kiri

**9526: Hey guys. Long time no see! I'm really sorry for the wait. Let me give a brief explanation on the reason why I haven't uploaded my chapter. I got grounded for about a month and a half for something really retarded. Then when I got off the hook, barely, my computer decided "Hey let's make my user get even **_**more**_** pissed off and let a virus in, and I had to fix it.**

**So, let's get this thing started!**

Disclaimer: I do NOT own Naruto

Chapter 2: Teachings of Kiri

Naruto sprinted through the gates, after meters of running he stopped. The blond looked around his surroundings and tried to absorb as much of Kiri's masked beauty as possible. There was just something about the mist that put him in a trance, entrancing him frozen. Finally words were able to escape from his mouth "Wow, it looks so cool" he whispered just loud enough for the whole group to hear.

Yagura smiled as he walked through the gates as well, "Yes maybe if we have some free time, I can arrange a tour for you" the Mizukage suggested, which Naruto responded with a large smile on his face. Naruto ran again to break away from the group to see the village's nearby buildings. As he ran, he slowed down to look at a Japanese castle that was seen in the distance due to its large rooftops.

The sight of it made him stop all advances of movement, as he attempted to examine the distant building of the castle. The rooftop was blue and the castle itself was twisted into a misshapen arrow head. The twisting went from the bottom part which began to twist up and as it twisted it thinned out to a platform made that's tiles were azure blue. Near the platform of the tower was an emblem that matched the blue of the tower with its own shade. Inside the round emblem, rested the kanji of water standing out proudly through the mist.

Before Naruto could even go any farther, the boy was knocked to the ground. The boy grunted in pain as he hit the ground. He rubbed the back of his head as he slowly sat himself upright; Naruto looked up to see what he ran into to see a villager around the age of 30. The man looked down to see who he hit "Watch where you're going kid" the villager snorted as he walked around the blond boy. Just as he began to walk around the ex Konoha citizen, he stopped frozen in his tracks. The villager's frame began to shake terrible in fear as to see who he was facing.

Naruto turned around to see the leader of his new village. Yagura stared down the villager that he had petrified by fear. His pols of violet showed not even an ounce of understanding for the villager's act of rudeness, which made the villager's body shake even more with fear. "Is that the way you act towards a new citizen of Kiri?" he asked coldly, his words piercing through the man's heart. The villager shook his head violently. "No Mizukage-sama!" he said.

"Then say you are sorry to Uzumaki Naruto, your fellow citizen" he ordered.

The villager whipped around to face Naruto, and in a flash he stretched his hand out to the blond. Naruto looked at the hand and grabbed it. The villager slightly pulled Naruto's hand, not hard enough to send the boy on the ground with his face in the dirt, but so the new villager will be back to his feet. Once Naruto was steadily standing on the ground, the villager backed away and bowed to the boy. "I'm sorry! Please, accept my apology!" the villager called.

Yagura raised his hand to the man, so he can motion the civilian to cease his apology. "You may go now" the Mizukage said waving his hand off to dismiss the villager, who ran off from the Mizukage. Naruto looked towards the direction where the man had disappeared. This was the first time someone actually said sorry for being rude to him; normally he would have thought he would feel relieved that someone had apologized to him. But how the man said was as though he was forced to, as if it wasn't natural. It seemed as though just as Yagura showed up, the villager's personality changed. Yagura turned to face the young blond and sighed "I apologize Naruto; usually my villagers are not so discourteous towards a new villager."

Naruto looked at Yagura, snapping himself out of his thoughts. "Oh um it's okay" Naruto assured his new guardian. Harusame turned around to the chunnin bodyguards "You may leave now" Harusame ordered, "Inform Utakata that I shall return in a couple of hours."

"Hai, Harusame-dono!" the chunnin called

"And while you're at it" Harusame stated as he reached for Naruto's back. The blond turned his head around.

"What the hell are you doin old man?" Naruto demanded. His question was answered when the elder ripped off his book bag from his back. The force of the pulling was so strong, that Naruto practically collapsed to the ground. He moved his legs as if by luck, maneuvered itself to stay strong on the ground,

"Take this with you" Harusame finished while giving the book bag to the chunnin on the right side.

"Hai, Harusame-dono!" the chunnin called as they both made the same hand seal, just as they made the seal they disappeared in a burst of water.

"Hey! Give it back!" Naruto yelled at the chunnin guards that were no longer there.

Harusame rolled his eyes and transferred his focus toward Yagura "So how shall training workout?" he asked his friend. Before the Mizukage could even answer his advisor's question, he was cut off by a human screech:

"HOW DARE YOU SELL THIS!"

The group turned to the location of the sudden outburst. A couple of shops to the left, a man were thrown outside through the door. The man flew through the air and slammed right into a hard solid brick wall. The man had black hair and glasses; he struggled slowly to sit up right against the wall. His body ached from the effort and looked at the door he was thrown through, and looked at his body cut out on the door. Naruto looked in shock.

"Hey mister, are you okay?" the blond called as ran towards the injured man. Before he could even take five steps towards the man, the door that the man was thrown through rocketed toward him. Naruto looked at it and screamed as the door flew towards him. Naruto scrambled on the floor just as the shops flying entrance flew across his head, scarily bonking his head on the way. Naruto held the back of his head with his one hand and groaned in pain. "Ow" Naruto looked at the man cowering on the buildings wall. The black haired man curled his body up to form a human ball; the door harmlessly hit the brick wall above his head.

"Why is **this** book on your shelves?" a woman asked angrily as she marched out of the shop, holding a book with the title Icha Icha Paradise on the cover of the orange book. The woman had long red fiery hair with the exception of the blue hair that was part of her few bangs in her hair. She had ruby eyes and wore a black tank top with a matching pair of pants, with a bright orange sash tied around her waist. There was also a twin pair of katana attached to the back of her waist. On her chest was a necklace was a small golden sun, and tied on her right arm was the headband for Kiri. The Kiri kunoichi shook her left fist at the injured man.

The man looked at the woman with fear in his eyes "I-I'm sorry, but ratings are off the roof with this book" he replied in fear. In a flash, the kunoichi was upon the man and held him up to her eyes by the collar. "Not in the face!" the shopkeeper covered his face with his hands.

"Oh, now you're asking for it!" the woman shouted as she cocked back her free hand in the form of a fist, ready to strike the man down with her fist. She was interrupted by a pebble that bounced off her head. The kunoichi looked at who threw the rock at her head. What she saw, was a blond about the age of 8 looking angrily. _A kid_, she thought in surprise. How dare this child disrespect Manami, the Beauty Hidden in the Mist? In fact, she was so surprised that she dropped the shopkeeper on the ground; that crawled quickly away from her.

The woman shinobi by the name Manami put her hands on her hips and leaned over to inspect the blond boy that was beneath her. The fiery hair woman studied Naruto so close, that he can actually feel her hair lightly tickle his face. Naruto jumped back in surprise of the sudden entering of his personal space. "Back of lady!" Naruto shouted. The outburst of the new Kiri citizen earned him a fresh large lump on his head. He held his head around the area where the bump was delivered.

"What the hell was that for!" Naruto shouted at the woman.

"You have some nerve hitting me kid!"

Manami grabbed Naruto's golden hair, and pulled him up to her view. Naruto glared back at the woman with an equal intensity. "I don't think you realize who you're messing with" she said to the boy. "Maybe I should teach you a lesson. Then you'll learn to respect me, Manami the toughest female of the Seven Swordsman of The Mist" she considered to herself while shaking her fist at the boy for an added effect. A bead of sweat formed on the back of Naruto's head.

"You wouldn't dare!" Naruto shouted. Manami looked at Naruto with an evil sneer on her face. "You don't know what I would do" Manami said evilly.

"Manami! Where are you, I wanna go to another store" a woman's voice sang from the shop that Manami had barged out of. A teenage girl around the age 15 walked out of the store. She had black hair that went to the midsection of her back by a ponytail that began to form at the base of her neck. She had a light blue skirt that goes to her thigh midway, and a white short sleeved shirt that revealed her stomach. On her neck was a navy blue scarf that had the Kiri symbol on it, acting as a headband. Towards her backside was a short sword positioned sideways, the sheath was white while the hilt was bronze. The girl had violet eyes.

The violet eyed teen puffed out her cheeks and glared at her companion. "Manami!" she whined. "You promised we would go shopping wherever I wanted today." The girl cast her look down towards Naruto who was turned to face her after his captive turned to face the teen.

"OMG! He's so cute!" the teenage girl exclaimed and in a flash, she had Naruto in her arms in a huge oxygen depriving hug. Naruto choked as he tried his best to breathe in air but to no avail. The teenage girl whipped around to face the fiery haired woman. "Manami, how could you hurt someone this cute?" That comment made Naruto's face turn into a rosy pink in embarrassment _I'm… cute?_ He questioned himself in his mind.

"Chiasa, who asked you?"Manami grumbled at the younger girl. Chiasa looked at her and immaturely stuck out her tongue. A large tick mark appeared behind the older swordsman's head, which pulsed slowly. "I'm your senior you brat! Give me some respect!" said Manami as she jabbed the air in front of Chiasa.

"Back off, you're just in a bad mood because you know I'm cuter than _you_." Chiasa insulted while slowly stroking Naruto's hair who sighed in relief, despite the two people arguing over him who each had a blade. Well the fiery haired one has two, but being constantly intimidated by evil glares is starting to be less and less fear striking.

"What did you say?" Manami roared advancing closer towards Chiasa.

Now it was Chiasa's turn to inch closer. "I am C-U-T-E-R than _you_. And you know it!"

"You flat chested bimbo!"

"I'm not the one who gets men crawling away from me on their hands in knees!" the shop keeper crawled backwards in fear as he overheard their argument and learned that the last insult was related to him. Manami noticed the sudden movement and shot an evil glance at the shop keeper. Said shop keeper jumped to his feet and hopped in a nearby barrel. Content with getting the money hungry shop keeper occupied, she faced her target.

Chiasa chuckled lightly "O look what you've done know Manami-hime." Said Chiasa, her voice drowned with sarcasm. "Your charms have yet again showed another man your _beauty_"

"Shut the hell up!"

"What is the meaning of this?"

Both women and Naruto turned to the voice to find a not so pleased looking Harusame and an even furious looking Yagura. With a last vengeful cast from Manami and a playful one from Chiasa, the two of them took steps apart from each other and faced their village leader. To Naruto's relief, Chiasa's grip slackened giving the blond a golden opportunity to escape from the hyper teen's grasp.

Yagura took a solitary step away from Harusame. "I am still waiting for an answer" he repeated annoyed of the absence of an answer. Manami glared at the barrel that was holding her target and in a flash, she withdrew her blades. The blades were bland but had a hidden fiery feeling just by gazing at it. The hilts of the blades were obsidian black with small details of red flames painted on the hilt. On the flat end of the left blade was inscribed in the blade was the kanji for eternal. The left blade's twin was the exact copy of its clone. Instead, on the blade inscribed on it was the kanji for blaze.

In two quick swipes, one for each blade, the swords-woman sheathed her weapons in their respective sheaths; making a slight swishing motion of the sheathing of the weapons. With wink at the Mizukage, the barrel collapsed into itself from the 4 pieces of barrel that was left. Inside the collapsed barrel, was the shopkeeper, franticly trying to hold the pieces of the barrel together with his hands, which kept on falling out of his hands. The spectacled man looked to see what had caused this force that blew his cover. His irises bounced off his eyes in the excited search for the attacker, but his saw made his eyes freeze in one spot. "Mizukage-sama…" he whispered loud enough for Yagura to hear.

The shopkeeper scampered out of the barrel's rubble, his hands painted with blood from the splinters on the barrel and scrapes of metal that held the barrel in place. Once out, he bowed towards the Mizukage on his hands and knees. Manami whipped around towards the shopkeeper. "This pervert over here, is selling _**this**_ because of the money he gets" her words were laced with venom as she spoke; her words were as sharp as the weapon she sported. At the end of her sentence, she tossed the orange book she held in her hands at Yagura's feet.

Yagura looked at the book lazily with one eye and bent over to pick up the book. When he brought himself up, he sighed as he read aloud the title of the book. "Icha Icha Paradise." However, Harusame was not as calm as his friend.

"How dare you bother us with such a nuisance" Harusame lashed.

"Why you!" Manami growled at the advisor.

Yagura put his hand in front of Harusame's path. Harusame growled before stepping down into his place beside his colleague. "Manami, you shouldn't cause such chaos on the streets."

The fiery haired swords-woman growled under her teeth, while poking her nose towards the clouds that was being held up by the skies. "Whatever." Chiasa turned towards Manami and poked her tongue at her senior swordsman.

"That's what you get"

"You little...!"

"And Chiasa, you are just as guilty." The black haired woman quickly jumped in shock. Manami made a quick glance over to Chiasa, sneering at the younger woman. Chiasa's face turned cherry blossom pink in embarrassment as she looked at her feet.

"But Yagi-sama! " Chiasa whined at the Mizukage, while quite red in the face.

A large tick mark formed on the right temple of the Mizukage "What have I told you about calling me that?" he asked while his question lashed at Chiasa. She began to lightly laugh in embarrassment while scratching her head. "Sorry about that Yag- I mean _Mizukage-sama_" she said correcting herself.

"Anyways you are both members of The Seven Swordsman of the Mist. I suggest you should act more professional, instead of acting like children." Yagura lectured to his subordinates. Both swords-women looked down at their feet in shame.

Yagura traced his eyes towards the blond child and smiled "Come now Naruto. We must make hast if we want to make it to the tower before sunset" Yagura said. Naruto looked at his new guardian with ocean blue orbs and nodded gingerly. As Yagura turned tail to leave, Naruto slowly followed the Mizukage's moving steps while continually looking back at the women who were pulling him back and forth like some sort of ragdoll. _They weren't so bad_, Naruto reflected his encounter with the two. Though the red head gave him chills in his spine that felt as though it was vibrating at a rapid pace. As he peeked over his tiny shoulders, he saw Manami's face twist in a nasty sneer.

The blond shivered slightly at the sight and decided to turn his glance towards Chiasa, who blew a simple kiss towards him. At first he thought none of it but remembering the death gripping hug he received from her. This made him jump even higher in the air in fear. Yagura turned towards Naruto and simply smiled at the boy's fear of one of his most annoying shinobi. "What's wrong Naruto?"

The boy slowly turned towards the Mizukage and with a sweat drop he decided to answer "Those guys are weird" Naruto whispered.

"Bunch of nuisances if you ask me" Harusame snorted. The councilman looked past his spectacles at the blond and smirked. "You know, I'm beginning to like you brat."

"Brat?" Naruto asked angrily.

Yagura sighed as the two argued back and forth as they traveled. _This is going to be one long walk to the tower_, he mourned mentally.

Scene Change:

As the group walked, they branched out from the city buildings. During their walk, the scenery changed into a forest that was lightly caked with mist. Sidewalks and streets transformed into grassland and trees. Naruto looked left and right in awe as he noticed the beauty of the forest draped in mist.

Finally, the group encountered a large cement staircase with a large gate that hung from the air. The gate was pitch black, over the top was the kanji for water tower. However, the kanji was ocean blue. Near the top of the gate, the black and the blue began to smear into a beautiful mix. Naruto stopped to read the sign hung over his head, "Water Tower?"

Harusame turned back at Naruto while standing on the middle step of the staircase "What are you doing?" he asked "Don't you wanna see your home?"

The blond shook his head from the trance to look at the elder "I'm coming, just hold on" Naruto retorted as he began to race up the stairs. With his short legs, Naruto practically had to hop from step to step. In almost a minute, he zipped past Harusame and Yagura who was just about a step or two higher than the Kiri advisor. As Naruto dashed ahead, a smile streaked on his face.

"Hey slow down brat!"

But all of Harusame's insults were drowned out. Naruto was way too happy for anything to smudge his mood. He was just seconds away from seeing his new home, marking the beginning of a new life, where no one could hurt him. While running, he past many rivers, streams, and other bodies of water that only gave the forest a more serene look. Just thinking about the idea of living with the leader of Kiri, made him feel as giddy as a toddler receiving a brand new toy.

What Naruto saw in front of him while standing on the last step of the staircase made him halt in his path. There was a large opening before him that measured about half the size of the football field and covered with cobble. Around the opening were white walls that formed a large rectangle. Along the vertical walls were 8 small wooden doors that looked as though it lead to a room. The floors of the houses, which were wood, were all connected to each other to form a walkway for each side of the castle.

In front of the rectangle was the castle Naruto had seen in the distance just as he entered Kiri. The building was enormous enough from the distance, but seeing the giant building made the blond feel even smaller. The building looked about 6 stories tall; it looked as though the very tip of the tower was reaching towards the sun itself, even if the sun was cloaked in the haze. The sunlight gave the rooftop the appearance as though it revived the ocean blue coloring of the rooftop that was beginning to wear off from time's cruel pull.

"Wicked" he whispered. Before Naruto could venture even further from the castle grounds, several bubbles drifted from the air and began to float in front of the blonds face. As they stood their frozen suspended in the air, Naruto couldn't help but marvel at the shape of the bubbles, _they're perfect. I wonder who made these._ Naruto thought curiously.

Suddenly the bubbles burst in front of his face erupting in a cloud of smoke. The smoke formed a cloud around the blond's face. Naruto began to cough as he inhaled the smoke. It scratched at his throat as breath. _What's going on?_ Naruto thought as he furiously waved his right hand back and forth, clearing the smoke. Just as the smoke began to fan out from his face, he bent over and clutched his knee caps, the last scrapes of the smoke coughing out of his lungs as he hung there.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?"

Naruto turned towards the voice, making him look towards the rooftops of one of the dorm rooms. There was a very thin boy with brown shoulder length hair stretching out with his back leaning against the sloping rooftops, his right arm resting under the back of his head, while holding a bamboo bubble blower that looked as though it belonged in an antique store. His skin was fairly pale and had amber colored eyes. He had bangs that covered the left side of his face including his left pair of amber eyes. The boy wore a sky blue kimono shirt that was detailed with tiny bubbles flowing towards the torso of the shirt but stopped at the solar complex. The collar had a background color of orange with a trail of bubbles on top of it. Over his shirt was a plain white shirt. Tucked under the kimono top, were a pair of navy blue pants that went a little above his knee caps.

The boy with brown hair held a bamboo bubble blower in his hand. His eyebrow twitched in annoyance "Who are you?" he repeated as he got up from the rooftop and hopped off from the rooftop. With a soft thud, the boy landed on the ground while resting his hands on the ground and landing in a squatting position. The pair of amber eyes never deterred away from the blond's face.

Slowly the boy rose to his feet and walked towards the former Konoha citizen. The browned haired child inspected the blond from all angles; Naruto's fronts, sides, and his back.

Finally after being examined for 5 minutes, Naruto began to become incredibly irritated "What the hell are you doin!"

The boy's stance straightened and stood facing Naruto, amber clashed with ocean blue. For moments the two glared down each other. A strong breeze swished around them as they constantly started at each other. The hair on the top of their heads swished back and forth. As they stood in that trance Naruto realized that the boy in front of him was a couple of inches taller than him. The staring contest was cut short with the noise of footsteps. The two turned to the sound of the footsteps.

First, Yagura stepped off from the stairwell followed by Harusame. The two men returned the glances back at the two. "So you two have met" Harusame announced as he began smirking towards the boys.

"What are you talking about?" Naruto questioned beginning to get annoyed.

The councilor turned to the boy that was recently blowing bubbles and began to walk towards him. He stopped at the boy's left side. The boy looked up at Harusame and made a quick bow of respect to him and straightened back up. "Harusame-sensei, who is this _boy_?" the brown haired child asked, putting emphases on "boy". Naruto snapped toward the other kid.

"What was that?"

"People like you have no business here" the boy countered coldly.

Before Naruto could respond to the insult, Harusame shot a look at him to silence him. In a flash, Harusame's fist swiped at the boy's head. "Utakata what's wrong with you?" he asked critically as he waved his fist at his student. "Is that the way you greet a classmate?"

Utakata looked at Naruto as he placed his hand on the large bump that was on his head. Naruto also showed a confused look on his face and returned the look. "Classmates!" they yelled in unison.

Harusame growled under his teeth "What are you two? A pair of parrots? Yes you're going to be training together" he announced.

Utakata turned his gaze towards his master "Please sensei, reconsider. That kid probably hasn't even began shinobi training." He said "I've trained under you for almost a year now, there's no way he can catch up with what we're doing."

"This was the idea of the Mizukage, so if you want to argue with his decision" Harusame growled "go ahead." Utakata clenched his teeth in fury. He looked down at his feet to show respect to the kage standing yards away from him watching him carefully.

"I will leave Naruto's training to you, Harusame. But do return Naruto to me before sunset so he can begin his night training" Yagura called out to Harusame.

"You know you're a slave driver right?" Harusame retorted, with a large tick mark appeared on the temple of his forehead.

With a drop of sweat dripping from the back of his head, the Yondaime Mizukage laughed nervously at his friend's statement and formed a hand seal. The air around him began to gradually get heavier in seconds, forming a small cloud around him. Soon, the veil of mist dissipated taking Yagura with him. Harusame sighed and faced the two boys.

"Umm Harusame-"Naruto began to ask before a blow to the head interrupted his question. The blond gripped his head as his head began to vibrate in agony from the blow.

"That's Harusame-sensei, boy" Harusame lectured to the blond.

The blond robbed his head with one hand "Harusame-_sensei_, what can I do?" Naruto asked "I mean I was going enroll in the academy in a year, so I don't know much about being a shinobi."

"I heard that you wanted to become the Hokage, back when you lived in Konoha. How do you expect to do that when you're already thinking about quitting?" Harusame smirked at the boy's sentence. Naruto cast his eyes down upon the ground below him, his eyebrow twitching in annoyance of the old man. _What's this guy's problem?_ The blond asked himself in thought.

The council man continue his triumphant sneer over the boy as he began to stride away from the boys "I have already figured out this problem." The teacher continued. He turned around to face the boys again when he was about a couple of feet from them. "Which is why, Utakata, you will make sure that Naruto will be caught up with our lessons. If Naruto deters in any of our lessons, not only will he be punished, but you will also be punished."

"But-"

"No buts! 100 runs up and down the stairs!" Harusame roared.

"Hai Harusame-sensei" Utakata mumbled under his breath. He turned to Naruto "Let's go newcomer" Utakata began jogging towards the staircase, his jog quickly turned into a sprint as he passed Naruto. The blond ran after his senior classmate, running as quickly as his little legs can carry him.

"Wait up!" Naruto called out as he ran. When he got to the staircase, he looked down at the last steps to see Utakata tracing back up the stairs. Naruto stood up straight when the boy passed him. A few beads of sweat streaked across his face, as Utakata took a half minute rest stop. The boy turned back around to be facing the staircase again for another go.

"If I were you, I would start your runs" Utakata whispered harshly to his new classmate before rushing down the cement stairs again.

"Why?" he shot back. For a second, a spike of ominous energy shot up from behind. Naruto looked to his rear through the corner of his eye to see Harusame tapping his foot impatiently. The advisor crossed his arms across his chest, but what made Naruto had to look back was the look in his eyes. It showed no emotion, just a message: "Move or pay dearly." which sent shivers down the blond's spine.

The blond took another peek down the staircase and gulped at how far he ran up the stairs the first time. _Maybe, I might be able to outrun the guy_ Naruto planned to himself. His eyes snapped in revelation as he realized what he had just said. _Get it in gear, Naruto; no one said training to be a shinobi will be easy, _Naruto said mentally smacking himself in the face as he ran down the stairs.

As he ran, he felt the air swish against his face as he went down the stairs. Normally, running down stairs is relatively easy. But in this case, it was torture to the boy. It was as though he was running a race without any end to it. After what seemed like an eternity of running, the blond stepped down to the final steps of the staircase. Naruto began to pant at the effort of his run.

Naruto's vision began to slightly disorientate as he took another breath of air. The blond looked up and felt his blood leave him at how many stairs was in front of him. It seemed as though the steps reached the skies above him.

As he looked up, he noticed Utakata running down the stairs quickly. With a quick hop from the bottom steps, he landed on the sidewalk that led to the first step of the flight of steps. Naruto looked at Utakata and slowly stood up. The blond panted heavily as he did so and began to take off at the stairs. The brown haired boy closely following him. The whole time they were running, the boy couldn't help complaining about the running he was doing, "Do you usually do this kind of stuff?"

The other boy stayed silent as he focused on running. A large tick mark appeared above Naruto's head when the boy didn't answer his question. The blond gazed at his path a head, "Aww man!" It was as though he barely climbed an eighth of the way up the stairwell. Naruto felt as though he was climbing a mountain than walking up a set of steps.

"Talking wastes needed energy" Naruto heard Utakata mumbled under his breath. Naruto turned his head towards Utakata. _Man, this kid is weird_ he thought.

The blond turned back again at the steps before him. It seemed as though talking, as well as complaining, did waste energy as he saw the number of stairs drastically decreased. Suddenly seeing the amount of stairs left to climb brought joy to the Uzumaki's heart as he ran. His heart pounded with each step he took, the feelings he was feeling was identical to the ones he had the first time he made his way up the set of steps.

With a small hop, Naruto touch downed at the last step of the treacherous staircase. A silly smile streaked across his face. "I did it!" he called out congratulating himself, while he thrust his small 8 year old fist in the air. "2 down…" the blond looked once more down upon the stairwell, _and 98 more to go_ he mourned mentally, his spirits dropped quickly, causing a tear to drop from his face.

-Scene Change-

_20 Minutes Later:_

Naruto panted heavily as he dragged his tattered and weary body up the stairs on last time. Every step he took, it felt as though he was walking in a pit of quicksand. With every step, the imaginary quicksand violently yanked him deeper and deeper into the "sand". It even tripped him up a couple of times, making him stumble, nearly taking him over the stairs. The sun blazed above his head as he walked, even with the mist dulling the flaming orb's breath, it still boiled the sweat drops that caked the blond's face.

Finally, after a lengthy battle between the cement and his leg muscles, Naruto grunted as he collapsed at the second to last step of the staircase. Dust cluttered in a small cloud around his face as he laid there on the uneven level of the stairs, the only thing that kept him from kissing the concrete was his tired legs that stood side by side. His feet pushed up on the step before his body, which stopped him from making a painful trip back down mountain of stairs.

_I can't move!_, he thought. He would have yelled his thought, but unfortunate for him, his mouth was too busy breathing in air to make up for the absence of oxygen. Every time he wanted to move his legs in order to get up, the leg he wanted to move will at best, twitch slightly. Other than that, his legs wouldn't move at all. "Damn" he whispered under his breath.

Suddenly, a shadow loomed over Naruto's fallen body. The shadow itself was small, about the same size as him but a bit taller, provided him with a small amount of protection from the sun's heat. Naruto struggled to adjust his head to who was above him; every centimeter was battle on its one to get the head up.

Utakata looked down at his classmate with hands in his pockets and sighed. He himself was quite winded; sweat plastered his face as he gasped for air. His lips were dry from the running, and licking them will only leave him with the bitter taste of salt in his mouth.

The elder student sighed and retracted his left hand from his pocket and stretched it out towards the boy on the ground. Naruto looked at the hand in a perplexed look, and lightly laughed at his face, despite the fact that each laughed deprived him of needed oxygen. Slowly, the blond boy's right hand began to rise from his right side and towards the brown haired boy's hand. Utakata in turn, embraced the hand that was lightly smaller than his. With a pull, the elder student heaved Naruto of the ground.

Naruto stumbled on his feet quite a bit so not to once again collapse on the soil floor. Finally after a battle for balance, the queasiness caused by the low amount began to suddenly to lightly lessen its grip on his body. He slowly looked up while he breathed heavily, Utakata was looking back at him from the center of the middle floor, and his hands on his knees while panting roughly, his eyes were glued to the floor.

_How'd he get there so easily?_ Naruto wondered mentally questioned himself. He shook his head slightly, mostly due to the low amount of oxygen he was trying to make due. "I hate running" Naruto rasped while taking a step for each word. At the word "hate", he had recently stepped off the last step of the staircase. He stared at Utakata as he walked.

With each step, it felt as though he was being dragged down by a ton of weights, attached to each leg. As he walked, he slightly faltered, his body unconsciously controlling itself in, a desperate attempt for it to not hit the ground. It took just about all his energy to trudge one foot a single centimeter, and he had to repeat the struggle for movement each time to get away from the flight of steps he had barely conquered. The blond still trudged on, but the blaze of the sun made the procedure seem as though it would drag forever more.

After what seemed like an eternity of sheer torture by walking a small runway of, he noticed that he halved the distance between him and his fellow classmate. Naruto smiled to himself as he slowly made an unnecessary half revolution so that his back was now facing Utakata. The blond's mouth twitched slightly at the sight he was viewing. His heart overwhelmed in pride as he become conscious of the achievement he had successfully accomplished. He ran up what felt like the Hokage monuments over 10 times.

In fact, the shock of the completion of the task made all energy to his legs quickly dissipate. It seemed as though time slowed down as he free fell to the ground. His eyes slowly closed until only a small creak of blue iris was left to be seen. He felt the sun lightly kiss his cheeks as he descended. The whole time he was falling, there was a large toothy smile on his face. _I did it…_ Naruto congratulated himself in his mind. When the blond's back made contact with the floor, a small thin cloud of dust puffed around his body. The small fragments of dust swept into the small creak of his eyes he left open.

But he didn't care; his body was far too tired to even send pain signals to his body. Naruto began to gaze at the clouds as his body rested from the torture he faced during his run. He panted heavily for breath, as he lay there on the ground. He had then just noticed how his shirt clanged tightly to his body. Sweat dripped of from him and slowly slopped down his body, creating miniature pools of clear body liquid on the dirt. The world through his eyes was like looking through a kaleidoscope. The color he was witnessing was a vast mixture of colors from orange to blue with tiny specs of white.

Even the voices above him were blurred.

"Sensei, _Naruto_ is unconscious. What should I do?"

"How about something like this"

Suddenly, all Naruto could see was rushing water crashing upon his face. The water barged into his opened mouth as he panted. The invading water continued its campaign by entering his body, though it hydrated the boy, it did so in a wintry way. The blond spluttered wildly as he flapped his arms in a frenzy to get the water to freeze him to death. In a flash, he landed on his feet his body dripping of water.

When he was stable on his feet, he noticed that his vision began to adjust to the sights he was seeing. He saw Harusame looking at the blond, looking pretty bored out of his mind while maintaining a one handed hand seal. Beside him was Utakata looking down upon Naruto, breathing heavily with a blank look on his face.

Naruto shook violently partly of the freezing cold water that was poured on him, and the fact that he was enraged for the reason that seemed as though one of them caused him to literally take a bath on the ground. He glared at Harusame with pure fury in his blue eyes. "What the hell was that for?"

"No sleeping during training" Harusame stated plainly as he dropped his right hand, and placed them back into the sleeves a sly smile graced his face, angering the blond immensely. But, he wasn't foolish enough to add to his argument, it seemed as though every time he had thought of a comeback, his instructor's eyes denied the phrase with its own glare, intimidating the blond.

"Now that everyone is accounted for, let's commence part 2 of today's training" Harusame announced to his students. Naruto looked at Harusame, with his arms at his sides looking back at his teacher with a hint of irritation within his eyes. Utakata walked into place of Naruto, to be standing at Naruto's side.

Slowly, Harusame parted his hands slowly as he did a tip of a white cylindrical shape slowly began to reveal itself. Sapphire and hazel eyes slightly widened in anticipation of what was beginning to gradually expose itself. _What's in his sleeve?_ Naruto wondered.

_Don't tell me he's gonna-_ Utakata realized mentally. The answer to his question appeared after minutes of nonstop suspense. Now, Harusame held a white scroll that was tattered greatly. On the front of the scroll was a kanji that symbolized control.

"It just has to be this exercise" Utakata moaned in displeasure under his breath so that Harusame could not have heard his act of protest but loud enough for his fellow student could hear him. Naruto slightly turned his head to so that a small half of his face was looking back at the elder boy.

"Why?" Naruto asked. Utakata answered his question by pointing at their teacher. The blond looked back at the old man. Harusame began to unroll the scroll that he held in his hand, when the scroll was just about a foot long, his hands in a flash slipped his grip from the scroll. Just as the scroll began to make its trip to the ground, he pressed the tips of his left hand on the scroll. For just a split second, Naruto actually witnessed his fingertips go into the scroll itself; widening his eyes in disbelief. "Impossible." Utakata stayed silent the whole time, even though the spectacle appeared before his very eyes.

Harusame pulled out from the scroll, a twin pair of black batons. On one side of the batons were the kanji for chakra. With a smirk, he casted aside the scroll to the ground, which bounced on the ground when it stopped falling and began to roll a short distance from the class. Harusame tossed the clubs to the boys. Utakata caught his stick with ease in a quick swipe, while Naruto was practically his baton in his hands, the stick bouncing in up and down off his hands as he attempted to hold the baton in his hand. With a quick lunge, he secured the baton in his hands and released a breath in relief.

_Got it!_ _But what's wrong with this baton? I mean usually a baton wouldn't be this so hard to grab_ Naruto thought while looking at the baton that was nuzzled by his hands.

"Your next training exercise is simple" Harusame snorted. "Balance these batons vertically until sundown."

Naruto's eyes went from the baton to Harusame, to the baton, and back to Harusame. "Wait! How can anybody do that?" he yelled at his sensei.

"Not my problem" Harusame waved away his student's complaining and made a ram seal. Suddenly, his body began turning into liquid. The process began from his feet and slowly started to creep upwards, his aquatic body flowing in the wind a smile streaked across his face the whole time this occurred. In seconds, the old man's body was completely consumed by the air.

Naruto threw his hands in the air and growled to himself "Stupid Harusame, giving me a dumb riddle" the blond grumbled. He looked at Utakata and a bead of sweat dropped down the bottom of his head at what he was seeing. Utakata was sitting cross legged with his hands brought together with all his fingers pointing up while the baton was nearly perfectly still, with its first end pointing on his head the other positioning itself upwards.

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing" Utakata quipped at his classmate. Suddenly, the baton rolled off the boy's brown hair. Utakata shot a look of annoyance at the blond as he got up to retrieve his baton. Naruto's eyes followed his movements. From the minute the brown haired boy got up to the minute he returned to his place, once again with the baton balancing on his head.

_How is he doing it?_ The blond questioned himself. Naruto walked towards Utakata's meditating body, and when he was close enough he dropped his body beside his classmate and imitated his sitting alignment. Every now and then, he would look over towards Utakata's silent body to adjust himself so his meditating stance as if he was looking at him for answers on a pop quiz.

When he just about copied Utakata's stance, Naruto placed the baton on his head the same position Utakata positioned the object. The blond smirked, thinking about how incredibly easy it seemed. But reality came in hard on the boy's head in the form of a perfectly round bump on his head. He gripped his head in pain; the baton barely rolled a foot away from the blond before it slowed to a halt. "Okay, let's try this again" he grumbled while rubbing his head as he returned to his stance.

The baton wasn't even in the air for a second before it came tumbling down upon his head once again. The wand once again created a bump on his head beside his previous bump, forming a matching pair of bumps upon his cranium. "Stupid training" he grumbled as he once again went to retrieve his item.

For minutes, the blond novice continued the process. But each time, he received a brand new bruise. Right now he was fuming. He couldn't do the exercise that he was assigned to do. His head ached from his bruises he had deserved; his face began to slowly throb in pain. Naruto snapped his neck towards Utakata's direction to observe his progress. It seemed as though the baton was steady in place on top of his head, with the exception of a couple of wiggles from the baton here and there.

"Unreal" Naruto whispered to himself in awe at Utakata's focus.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of observing the club finally dropped down on the brown hair boy's head thumping him on the head. He looked down upon his equipment, his forehead giving birth to a new coat of sweat. He rubbed his head where the baton had struck him, and traveled towards his baton. After retrieving the object he walked back towards where he was sitting and began settling down in his meditating stance.

Before he stacked the baton once again on his head, he turned to face Naruto's look and stopped his motion. "What do you want?"

"How the hell were you doing that?" Naruto yelled.

"I'm focusing my chakra" Utakata mumbled. The blond looked at Utakata as though he was crazy and asked Utakata a question he was really expecting:

"What's chakra?"

Utakata looked at him in a quizzical glance as though Naruto was joking. Even though he had no official training, besides today, he should at the very least have some sort of idea of what it was. "Y-you're serious?" Utakata asked.

"Just shut up and give me an answer!"

The elder student sighed and muttered something about dumb blonds before he continued to answer the question. It didn't seem as though him knowing what chakra is would help him, maybe more time of embarrassment would give this Naruto person a clue that he doesn't belong here. "Chakra is the combination of 2 forms of energy. Physical energy, which is energy gathered from bodily training, and spiritual energy, which you get from meditation and mental processes, like emotions. Mix it together and you get chakra."

The blond thought about what he had just heeded and smiled at the hint he was given "Thanks Utakata"

The boy rolled his eyes at his new classmate. "I only said that so when you messed up, Harusame-sensei can't say that I didn't help" he snorted.

A tick mark formed at the right temple of his head, _just as I thought he was actually being _nice Naruto thought infuriatingly. Naruto looked at his baton and reflected at Utakata's words as he returned to his spot and placed himself in his stance. When he first thought of exercise, he instantly recalled the running he just did and mentally shivered at the feelings of pain in his legs he experienced.

As he placed the baton on his head, he began thinking about the second part of Utakata's advice. When it came to emotions, his mind came to a blank. _What did he mean? _ The blond clutched the pendant that was lying on his torso _I'm beginning to miss gramps_. Then a thought flashed in his mind, the answer to the last part of the definition became clear. Just as fast as the answer came to his mind, he released the baton.

He began to think about how he missed the only man who actually treated him as a member of his family. He remembered the feelings he had when he was living in Konoha. Though the inhabitants of Konoha wanted nothing to do with him, they probably hated every inch in his body. But seeing the old man's face, which held so much warmth whenever he sees him; to him it was all worth it.

But it seems as though he won't be able to see that face for a while. Suddenly, he began to feel a strange sensation in him that began to creep inside of him. It was at first boiling hot, to the point where Naruto wanted to retreat to reality to stop the burning. But something made him grasp onto this strange mental state of mind. The hotness began to slowly dissipate until it went from an uncomfortable burning to comforting warmth.

Naruto began to feel a sensation, as though he was covered by a blanket that was just recently ironed. At the moment he felt like no one could even touch let alone harm him. In a word: invincible. All of a sudden, he felt something slipped. _What was that?_ Soon the concentration went by him and the feelings he was experiencing quickly evaporated.

Slowly, Naruto's creaked open his eyes. It was as though the world he was seeing was in high quality. The mist itself radiated its transparent colors, to his eyes the sun was barely covered by the mist. He looked around him, every object that fell upon his sights contrasted with amazing sharpness. Naruto was lost at words at what he was seeing.

Then he remembered why he had suddenly come to. He didn't have to look far at what had caused the interruption; his baton was once again on the ground. The blond looked at the abandoned stick for a while. He noticed that his breathing became more and more ragged, he felt as though he had once again completed another journey on the stairs but this time, it felt as though he was wearing weights during his imaginary run.

Naruto turned around to check up on Utakata's status. The brown haired boy looked back at the blond in disbelief. In fact, he was so incredibly surprised by the progress of the former Konoha citizen that his own baton toppled off the top of his head, bonking him on the had as the stick dropped to the ground. The object bounced twice, it didn't bounce anymore because the stick was once again in his hands.

The blond smiled and gave him a toothy smile which was supported by the peace sign aimed at his fellow student. "Hey I made the baton fall down later", this comment caused a tick mark to materialize on the back of Utakata's head. The elder boy released a breath of air that he was holding in to calm himself before returning to his trance, causing the baton to straighten.

Naruto turned his attention back at the baton ahead of him and sighed as he got up. When he reached his feet, he noticed that his body began to ache tremendously each minute he stood. The blond slowly picked up his leg and moved it slightly forward. Moving the leg blossomed flowers of pain over his body with each step. He grunted in pain and swallowed down his wanted screams of agony down his throat. With that one step, the baton was practically in his face, all that was needed was to bend over and retrieve it.

He leaned his body over to grasp the baton; every advancement of his hand was its own battle. Each inch brought pain to spread on his arm, but he wouldn't quit. Finally, the baton was in his grasp. Naruto panted as he brought the baton to his face and then snapped his head towards the sky to see that the yellow orb in the sky barely had a hint of orange.

_I'm starting' to hate Harusame_. The blond began the trek back to his position. But, the journey alone was pure torture; finally he sat back down in his lotus position. "Okay, let's concentrate" Naruto said to himself as he placed the stick back on his skull. Quickly, he clapped his hands together and began to search for the strange sensation he had discovered from the beginning.

_Scene Change:_

On the 5th floor of the Kiri Tower, Yagura was observing the two training through a window on his left with his arms folded across his chest. The Mizukage was leaning on part of the window with his left side. The whole time he had entered the tower, he stood out the window witnessing the two's training. But the focus of his examining was a certain blond. Even he had to admit the training Harusame was giving the boy was quite cruel.

As if on cue, a large droplet of water pulsed up from the wooden floor. Just as the artificial rain drop began to its decent towards the ground, it exploded into a hundred of smaller droplets. The water lightly tapped everything that was in its radius, including the outfit of Yagura. In the center of the body of water was the man he was just thinking about, Harusame looked at his leader with a smirk on his face.

Yagura turned towards his elder and sighed deeply, his face turned to a frown "You know that shunshin gets on my nerves" he complained with a tick mark pulsing at the temple of his head as the water from the old man's jutsu slipped off his face.

"Sorry, but it was too tempting to resist" he sneered as he walked towards the window until he was about an inch from the window and standing beside his comrade, and looked at the blond. The baton was standing perfectly still against his head. "Curious are you?"

"You can call it that" he smirked at his friend. "You know filling those batons up with chakra to unbalance their chakra control was a dirty trick. I'm beginning to question if Utakata is having trouble with the exercise."

"What? I was curious to see if that Naruto kid had what it takes to keep up" Harusame said simply while holding his hands up. For a while the two observe the blond and noticed a thin outline of blue chakra drape over the boy's body. The blue coating was so radiating that it even covered the baton in its grasp. "I'm impressed; I didn't think he would grasp the concept of chakra so quickly"

Yagura looked at his pocket and retrieved a scroll that had the kanji for aura on a blue tag. The scroll itself was elegantly shaped. It was about as thick as a regular scroll, and greatly resembled an hour glass "I thank you Harusame for lightly awakening Naruto's potential with the training he received. For it will be needed for what shall happen next at sundown"

Harusame looked at his friend and smirked. "Considering the progress he made just by my training, I wonder what shall become of the new member of Kiri" It seemed as though his words hit a brick wall considering that the young kage focus was on the scroll entirely.

His eyes traced the scroll back and forth of the scroll, as though he could unravel the contents of the scroll with his purple spheres. Slowly he raised his free hand towards the scroll, and clasped his hand on the scroll his finger slide towards the edge of the scroll, in the act of opening the scroll. But the paper didn't open even as a tiny spark of white colored lightning ignited on the scroll, shocking the Mizukage's hand; making him withdraw his opening hand.

_So the Hokage-sanma was correct; only Naruto can unravel the scroll_.

_Flashback:_

"_The terms of the transfer of Uzumaki Naruto to Konoha are complete" Homura announced to the congressmen of Kiri and Konoha. It had been a trudging effort from both sides to settle the details of the transfer that will accommodate to both lands, which took hours but it was done. Yagura was incredibly wiped from the discussion and now was the time to leave the room, bidding farewell to their new allies in arms. _

_There was a tradition that was done to mark a new chapter of alliances with shinobi lands. The land holding the conference will line up, from the three representatives of the council standing side by side in a straight line, leading to the door of the, having the kage of the land at the end of the line. The visitors will walk down the line shaking every member of the line's hand._

_Harusame stood up from his seat followed by the Mizukage. As they walked down the line, the members of the Konoha council shook the hands of their new allies, giving them comments about how excited they were to be comrades; with the exception of Danzo who said nothing and grudingly shook their hands while glaring holes on their foreheads. The two ignored his looks and went on to the man he called them here. _

_Hiruzen smiled as he shook both their hands at once "It will be an honor to work at your side" the senior kage commented. The Kiri men smiled respectively back and continued shaking his hand. The Hokage ceased his shaking and let go of both of their hands. He turned his head towards the Mizukage. "Yagura may I have a word with you?"_

_Harusame turned towards his leader, Yagura turned to face his friend and nodded his head in a way to dismiss his comrade. "Fine, but don't spend more than an hour here" he instructed his leader like a child as he walked down the hall. _

_The Hokage turned to his left "May we have some privacy?" he asked. Homura and Koharu nodded and walked out of the room, followed by Danzo who looked back at the two kages as though he wanted to stay in the room to listen to the upcoming conversation. But orders were orders and he didn't need more critics on his methods._

_When the doors closed, Yagura looked at the old man there was silence when the doors closed. Finally, curiosity got the best of him "So what have you brought me here to talk about?" he asked._

"_About Naruto" he said simply._

"_What about him?"_

_The Hokage materialized his pipe and inserted the pipe in his mouth and inhaled. When he exhaled, he made sure his face was pointed to the side "There is no doubt that once he has accepted Kirigakure as his new home, he will attempt to become the preceding Mizukage." He informed the junior._

_Yagura nodded. "This is why he shall train with Harusame"_

"_That's not the reason why I have called you here." Hiruzen continued. He walked closer to the conference table. "I am not obligated to reveal the identity of Naruto's family, but I can say that his family was actually a clan."_

_The Mizukage raised his eyebrow at this statement, and faced the Hokage. "That's remarkable, and you want to openly hand him to Kiri?" he asked critically._

"_I'm the only person who has this information about Naruto, the rest have already died' Hiruzen stated plainly. "Now then, there is reason to suspect that Naruto has the kenkai genkai of that clan."_

"_How did you deduce that?"_

"_It's known that a member of Naruto's clan has an extraordinary amount of chakra. You witnessed the magnitude of his chakra just by looking at him isn't that right?"_

"_Yes I have" he answered. He thought back at his meeting with the boy. Not many know this about him, but he is a sensor. Just by looking at him, he had a raging amount of chakra crammed up inside of him, in fact to him, his stomach was radiating chakra. Then it came to him. "So you expect me to unlock this power for you, correct?"_

_The Hokage nodded slowly and went in his robe pockets and went shuffling in his pockets for an item while he was holding his pipe with his teeth. Finally he withdrew a scroll that resembled an hourglass and had a blue tag with the kanji for aura on it. "This scroll represents the techniques members of his clan can learn." He said as he took on more look at the scroll before handing it off to the Mizukage. _

_Yagura inspected the scroll, it was light and it emitted off a feeling of ancient flow by touching it. The young man went to unravel the scroll, but was caught short by a small spark of white lightning electrocuting his hands making him retreat his advancing fingers._

_Sarutobi Hiruzen looked at him "The scroll will only open for members of Naruto's clan, no one else may open the scroll" he said._

_End of Flashback_

Yagura continued looking at the scroll. _We shall see what this mysterious clan has to offer_.

-End of Chapter-__

**9526: What could be hidden in the scroll that was entrusted to Yagura by the Hokage, find out on the next chapter? Don't forget to comment and review!**


	3. Return of the Nightmare

**ROFLSun: Long time no see, it's been a while(Past a year). Thanks for the reviews! Really appreciate them. I guess I owe you some explanation why I didn't update sooner, the reason I've been away is because I've been working on creating my own abridged series. I began thinking that maybe making an abridged series would be pretty fun to do. So I thought maybe I can try this out and see where it goes, don't worry Lost in the Mist isn't going anywhere. I worked pretty hard on it and really want this thing to take off. SO please check out the episode the link is at the end of the fanfic.**

**Also, you probably noticed that The Lion & the Fox fanfiction were taken down. The reason why was because, I just lost complete interest in it. I mean when I was throwing in ideas for the Chunnin exam arc, I was drawing blanks. And for some strange reason, I was pretty blindsided with this genius idea for Lost in the Mist that I'm pretty sure you will get excited for. **

**So on with the fic!**

Chapter 3: Return of the Nightmare

The sun began to slowly sink in the trees as though it was a cinder block floating to the marine surface. The sun mixed with the sky mixing together in a beautiful blend of crisp fall leaves in the belly of the fall season. Miniscule shadows that clung to it large towering original copy grew to surpass its creator.

These same shadows, though officially marked the end of a day did not cross the mind of a certain sweat dripped blond child as he panted heavily. His clothing was tattered greatly from the punishment he received from his training baton. His face created a mask of sweat that seemed to plaster his face with the eternal streams of bodily liquids. His once proud orange shirt was twisted and pulled from the amount of sweat it absorbed.

Countless times, the hair on the child constantly flapped on his eyes, masking his vision; which called for a quick swipe from his right just as tattered hand. Naruto gripped on the baton's center, and looked at it for the hundredth time. It seemed as though every time he mounted the baton upon his cranium and began to search for the foreign energy that seems to cause the baton to stay inanimate on his head, the new found energy takes a step further and further away from his consensus.

Naruto pulled his attention away from his training toll to observe for the umpteenth time on how his senior student was coping with the exercise. Utakata's body was nearly as ragged as his younger classmate. It was hard for both of them to breath. Naruto panted heavily, his vision became greatly blurry it was as though his eyelids were filled with lead.

All he wanted to do know was to sleep, he wanted to collapse on the ground, but his body was no longer obeying his commands. It's as though his body itself was too tired to receive any messages from the brain.

Utakata was glaring holes on the left temple of the former blond Konoha citizen. He could believe what he witnessed this evening. He just saw a simple 9 year old, a year younger than him who has no experience with using chakra at all, was actually keeping up with him. He had done this exercise over 5 times and it took years of discipline for him to be at the level he was. And for a newbie to stand at par with him was extremely frustrating.

A sudden large droplet began free falling to the ground at an incredibly fast pace. As it moved, micro sized water droplets seeded from the main droplet. Due to the fact that both boys were exhausted by their recent brutal training they received at noon, they failed to detect the incoming body of water that was aiming to crash down upon the ground. When the liquid body did make compact to the ground, it obliterated to millions of rain droplets.

Naruto flinched in shock, normally he would've jumped back an extraordinary length but his body was held tightly to the ground. Even Utakata was slightly taken back in surprise from the unexpected water dive bomb that they just witnessed.

In the middle of the spot on the ground where the droplet of water exploded, was Harusame who was slightly pulling his mustache in a bored manner. Where he was standing was completely dry, but everywhere else on the ground was slightly drenched with water. Harusame looked at Utakata's winded body and began to observe his status. He's definitely out of chakra, but he shouldn't have been winded this much.

_Normally at Utakata's level, he should have been had a semi-medium case of chakra exhaustion,_ the adviser contemplated to himself.

His eyes traced over to his newest student, and wasn't that surprised to see his condition. It was after all the first time he actually experienced using chakra. In Konoha, he probably would learn the basic concepts of chakra at the ending of shinobi academy.

The exercises he gave the both of them were at upper genin level; this was years beyond their recommended training schedule. But to have someone like Naruto keep up with Utakata was a quite surprise. Then it hit him, the idea blessed the adviser with a sly smirk on his face. That's why Utakata is furious, Harusame concluded, deciding that he might as well show the two children mercy for today by dismissing his students.

"Not bad, not bad at all you two" Harusame commented as he began pacing back and forth in front of his two students. With each step the elder took, the boys' eyes followed, never missing a single beat. "What you two experienced today were an exercise that has been done in the past. Starting tomorrow we're going kick our training up a notch. The training you received will be child's played compared to what you're gonna face tomorrow." He announced, making sure that each word were on the voyage of sinking into both of the boys' heads.

At the last sentence, their eyes snapped wide open in shock, especially Naruto. _Tomorrow's going to be worst? I can't even stand from doing this_, Naruto thought.

"So you two might as well get a good night's rest because tomorrow is gonna be hell" Harusame said, and stopped his pacing. When he stopped, he was standing between the boys. The adviser brought his left hand up and formed the basic hand seal with it. "Oh before I go you might want to eat this, unless you want to sleep on the ground for the night." Harusame reached into his left robe sleeves with his right hand and retracted two circular green pills, holding them between his fingers right hand.

In a swift motion, Harusame tossed the pills to his students. The pills bounced, on the ground with a microscopic think sound that nobody could here. The balls slowly rolled towards the Naruto and Utakata, it stopped about a foot away from the two. With a sneer from their teacher, Harusame dropped his right hand to his side and shunshined out of the courtyard by turning into a giant rain droplet plunging into the ground, leaving the boys to the strange pills that were left for them on the ground.

The blond's body crumpled to the ground as his legs buckled over each other. He opened his eyes to see the tiny jade orb in front of him; Naruto slowly began craning his head towards the pill. He began thinking about the pill. Every inch of movement was its own battle as he adjusted his sites to the pill. What is it? Why is he giving this to me? The main question that circulated in his head was: What will it do to me? Naruto could count how many times he had consumed poison his body while living in the village.

Every once in a while in the village, someone would offer food to him and after an hour after eating the food, Naruto would feel sick to his stomach, on some cases he would begin to vomit blood. But he knew no one would take him to the hospital, which would? He had no money and no guardians, he was on his own. Every time a scenario like this happened, he thought he was going to die so he would drag himself towards his abandoned house that he took over as his own and wait for death to embrace him, like the parents that he never had.

So what was so different about this man? He barely knew him, and he had him working like a slave. He had shivers just thinking about the training he had just went through, but all the while his eyes were opened. It gave out this message that everything that was coming out of his mouth was the undeniable truth. While living in Konoha, Naruto has adopted the ability to judge someone through their eyes. Most of the eyes were cold and held a burning hatred for the blond every time they would happen to look at him. He could at least give the old man that was in front of him a shot.

With a small smirk on his face, Naruto slowly began to extract his hand from his sides, each arm screeched in protest, he didn't care, and he wanted to see what this pill will do for him. His curiosity grew with every second his hand inched closer towards the pill, making occasion rest periods. After about an eternity of miniature inches towards the mysterious emerald circular pill, his finger was finally able to make a firm clasp over the pill.

Naruto panted heavily from his efforts, and with one loud grunt he sluggishly dragged his arm where the finger grasped the pill. Once his right hand, the hand that was cradling the pill, was now floating near his mouth, the blond child took a deep breath and placed the pill in his mouth. When the pill was in his mouth, his mouth suddenly surged with a burning sensation. It felt as though his tongue was engulfed in flames, every strand of instinct in his body was instructing him to spit out the foreign pill from his body.

Just as he was to do so, the white hot flames that were erupting in his mouth began to slowly lose its temperature as it moved down the boy's throat. The mild hotness rested at his throat when it drastically transformed its figure into sun-like warmth, this new warmth plunged into his stomach and that is when it happened. Suddenly, a surge of energy started to crackle in the belly of the blond; with each crackling pop a dead tired muscle sparked with new life. The once mysterious new found type of energy was now restored. Naruto could feel all the energy in his body course through his veins, it was riveting.

Naruto could feel his body begin to feel extremely light, as though he was a hawk that was preparing to soar out of its nest for the first time in its life. Lighter and lighter his body began to feel, and as his body increasingly began to feel light Naruto began to slowly rise as well. It felt as though gravity was going in reverse, and push him away from the earth. The process was terrifying; it was as though his energized body was going to float him away from his new misty home.

Just as his feet was about to lose all contact to the ground, his body began to slightly cool climatically. With the cooling came the added weight that ceased all movement from the boy from floating away. His feet became rooted to the ground, while his body temperature settled down with his body becoming slightly more heated than usual.

Naruto began to suddenly pant, but not as heavy as before. He no longer felt the extreme levels of fatigue in his eyes. Naruto bent over slightly to grip his knees as he began to recollect his breath that he had loss from his first training regime of the day. All he could do for a while was just standing there recovering his breath; he felt the setting, slight covered sun prickle at his skin. As the blond recuperated, he noticed that the black pendant given to him began to sway lightly side to side.

Naruto narrowed his vision so that the kanji symbol was in his eyesight, which was steadied at the brim of his nose. As the necklace was in his focus, he began to think about his village: Konoha. He remembered the sakura trees that bloomed in the spring, he remembered the summer fireworks festival that he would attend every year to see the fireworks streak across the sky.

Finally, he remembered his words he had said to the only person who he would refer to as family, Old man! When I come back, I'm coming for the title of Hokage! The blond Kiri citizen gripped his necklace in his small fist tightly in a strong grip for his age, _Old man, I will come back to the village,_ he silently resolved to himself.

Naruto adjusted his body so he was standing up right; his body ached him slightly at the change of body position. The young boy looked upon Utakata, who was dusting himself off from the dirt through a series of pats from his hands.

"So what happens now?" Naruto asked Utakata.

Utakata shot Naruto a dirty look, the elder student's eyes were filled with such hate that anyone who has never experienced the intensity of the gaze would flinch terribly. But Naruto only nerved a small amount, he flinched not because of the glare he was given. Naruto was well associated with the glare he was given, but he was surprised that he was given such a glare from someone whom his barley was associated to.

The two glared at each other, minutes went by until Utakata clenched his teeth and stormed off towards one of the many building doors that surrounded to area of the Water Tower. "Figure it out yourself!" he snapped irritably at the younger student before he briskly stormed off to the last door on the right. The door opened quickly and closed as fast with a deafening snap to the slamming door.

Naruto flinched at the closing door, for a moment there was complete silence. Birds lightly chirped in the distance, it felt as though the chirping was right behind him. Naruto clenched his fist tightly in anger wonder why? Why was everyone that he met, angry at him? The chirping suddenly became so loud it was impossible for the blond to ignore.

"Asshole!" The blond screamed at the top of his lungs. But when he turned around there wasn't anything or anybody behind him. In fact, all he saw was a blue bird chirping but the proud azure colored bird was resting peacefully on a messy, unkempt, twisty nest that rest on top of a tall tree stood at the bottom of Water Tower's stairs. But it was then that it came to Naruto: He had never been able to see so far before in his life.

"What's going on?" He whispered to himself. He remembered during the exercise he had been doing a moment ago after the baton fell upon his skull once again; but that's not the piece of memory he was searching for. He then remembered the second he opened his eyes the world around him grew sharper and clearer for some reason. It felt as though he was an entirely new Naruto.

Naruto shook his head furiously, "What am I talking about?" He exclaimed to himself, "I guess those batons did a number on me." Naruto focused his attention on the Water Tower and stood in awe. He never realized how beautiful the tower was up close now that his new found senses were focusing his eyes.

The tower was elegantly twisted in a counter clock fashion, the building becoming thinner and thinner his eyes reached the top. At the tip of the building was a sapphire bust of a large, limbless dragon wrapped around the tip of the tower, the tail grasped around the building to stop itself from falling; the tip of the tail retreating towards the shelter of the window that Yagura was in. Its head was at even level with the tip of the building. In the mouth of the dragon was a white pearl with the kanji for mist itched in the sphere.

Naruto had trouble seeing the bust at first but, soon it came into clear focus. The blond began to wonder what was that object that hung on the tip off the building and why couldn't he see the statue before. True his eyes were nowhere near as sharp as before he entered Kiri, but he should have noticed the dragon earlier for the dragon's manufactured scales glistened strong enough to alert any newcomer of its presence. It was then that he noticed Yagura in a window that was near the tip of the dragon; the Mizukage had changed back into his formal outfit.

The young kage leaned over to the window, "Naruto! Come up the tower, you are not yet finish your training!" He called to the new Kiri citizen.

Naruto blinked twice at the request, he forgot that he also had night training to attend now. "But I thought I was finished!" Naruto whined in frustration. This only caused Yagura to chuckle.

"If you come I can guarantee you that you will get" Yagura started to say, but lightly softened his voice at the last part of his sentence "stronger."

Naruto jumped for joy as he heard this, "Woo hoo!" He yelled at the top of his lungs, "With this training I'll beat the pants off gramps!" The blond ran for the tower as fast as he could, when he reached the door he realized that the door was made of black oak and had two metal plates that had to be pushed to enter the tower. The blond pushed his way into the tower, and noticed that the building was neat.

The towers inside walls were colored in white paint and the floors were made of wood. It had a feudal era design; in the front of the room was a woman with maroon colored hair and rectangular glasses. She had on a white sundress with a teal sweater over the dress. The woman seemed busy sorting through papers. When the doors swung back into place a light bell was with a soft, pleasant ring.

The woman looked at Naruto and smiled, "Hello!" She replied cheerfully "I'm Ami, Mizukage-sama's assistant, you are..."

Naruto scratched his head nervously, "Um, I'm Uzumaki Naruto" Naruto greeted.

Ami smiled at the young boy, "Well it's a very nice to meet you!" She said, "Mizukage-sama is waiting for you on the top floor. But please move quietly, the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist are about to have a meeting on a couple floors above this floor."

"The Seven Swordsmen of the Mist?" Naruto asked.

"Oh that's right!" Ami said aloud, "You're new to Kiri. Here let me explain: The Seven Swordsmen of the Mist are a group of highly trained shinobi that each has an extraordinary sword. They're said to each have the strength of 3 trained jounin."

Naruto stood there speechless in admiration at these 7 highly trained shinobi. "Awesome!" Naruto said, "Hey Ami-san, do you think I could be a member?"

Ami giggled to herself, "I think you're going to need to wait a couple of years before you try joining" she laughed. "Besides don't you have to go meet the Mizukage-sama?"

"Oh that's right!" Naruto exclaimed as he took off towards the mahogany wooden stairs behind Amy, "Thanks, see you later!"

"Bye Naruto-kun!" Ami called after the blond child took off on the stairs.

Naruto looked up the stairwell and saw that the walls were painted white as well. The walls were decorated with long, skinny blue swirls that was splattered on the white wall. The stairs were the same color as the main lobby's floor. The stairs spiraled in a square like pattern for what looked like an eternity.

"Are you kidding me?" Naruto shouted.

"Naruto-kun, are you alright?" Ami's voice echoed in concern.

"Yes Ami, I'm okay" Naruto grunted. The young boy turned his attention to the large staircase that was in front of him. "I just finished training, why the hell do I have to climb up this thing?" Naruto sighed.

"Guess I have no choice" he said as he began walking up the stairs. As Naruto walked up the stairs, his breathing slowly steadily became more ragged. Naruto panted heavily as he stopped where he was to check his progress.

So far he spent about 6 minutes of walking continuously towards the top. And it looked as though he had barely covered half of the stairwell. _Come on give me a break_, he complained to himself mentally. He kept on walking upwards, each step was its own vicious battle by the time he felt as though he reached three quarters of the way up. His legs ached from all the walking he had done.

Naruto fought to breath as much oxygen as he could, Naruto took one step and saw that his foot touched down on a floor level. He looked up to see if that was indeed his stop, but he still had a couple more flights to cover. Naruto growled under his breath, "THIS IS GOING TO TAKE FOREVER!" Naruto roared in anger to the top of his lungs.

Suddenly, Naruto felt a large presence from behind him. It wasn't as though he heard the presence behind. It was as though something in the back of his brain flickered towards the hallway beside the next set of stairs. The blond's instinct didn't fail him as a large man walking towards him began to appear in Naruto's eye sight. The kiri child was surprised that his instinct was able to notice the large man before his sight did.

The man walked farther up the hall for Naruto to notice that he was entirely blue skinned and had beady yellow eyes. He wore a black white cloak that covered all his body except for his feet. What surprised Naruto was its pulsing gills that the large fish man had. With each step the mysterious man took, he noticed that it became harder and harder for him to breath. _What's happening to me, I can barely move!_ Naruto tried to run away from the fish man, but he had grown to tired to move all of a sudden.

It wasn't long before the fish man got so close to Naruto that the blond felt a cold, large shadow enclose him that reeked of fish. The blue man simply sneered at Naruto heavily panting for oxygen. The blond felt as though he was close to losing conscience when a voice pierced through Naruto's ear drums:

"Kisame!" The voice said.

Naruto struggled to his head towards the voice. He saw a elder man with long, white hair that was untamed right behind the fish man. His hair was almost as untamed as his facial hair which included a pearly white colored beard that was almost at level with his abdomen. He had iron black eyes that his behind round spectacles and wore a similar cloak to the fish man that was in front of Naruto. On his side was two katana that were both in black sheaths. Naruto also noticed that the old man had a pair of ruby read headphones that rested around the neck of the old man.

Beside his blades was a young boy around Naruto's age who had sky blue short pants and a gray T-shirt. He had navy blue colored hair, rather pale skin. He too also wore glasses, but had his frames in rectangles. The young boy clung onto the leg of the old man, as though he was in fear of the large fish man

"Kisame! Stop this at once!"

Kisame looked at the old man annoyed, "What is it old man? I'm just having fun!" The fish man said to his defense. He attempted to place his large blue hand on top of Naruto's head, but Naruto noticed that the old man's presence disrupted the fish man's spell; giving Naruto the chance to move away from the fish man's hand.

The blue man snarled at the elder with detest, "Why don't you just die already, Koga!" He retorted.

The old man laughed heartily at the blue man, which angered the bipolar fish more. "My heart is healthy running for my age; your heart is so spoiled and dark its a miracle that you're still alive Kisame" Koga chuckled. Kisame clenched his teeth tighter as he briskly walked past the old man leaving Naruto holding on to his knees gasping for air as if he was a fish out of water.

For a moment the old man and the blue haired child stood their looking at Naruto as he struggled with breathing. Then Koga vanished and suddenly appeared in front of Naruto; leaving the child alone to play with his fingers. Naruto jumped back in shock of the sudden appearance, In a quick movement, Naruto saw the elder's hand move in a striking motion at his stomach. Naruto knew he couldn't dodge it due to the speed of the strike. But somehow he was able to see the old man's hand make contact with the blond's stomach. He knew a normal person couldn't see the hand hit him, but he did. _What's wrong with me?_

The blow came and suddenly felt a cooling sensation overwhelm the blond's body. It was as though he had jumped into a freezing cold pool of water. The feeling left his hearing go deaf. Koga swiftly withdrew his hand, and watched the Naruto regain his breathing. Naruto took a single breath and felt his hearing has returned to him and found that it was much easier for him to breath.

"How is that my young friend?" Koga asked while returning to the blue haired child.

Once Naruto regained his breathing, he stood up properly and decided to answer him, "Better" Naruto answered.

Koga smiled behind his spectacles, "That's good to hear, let me introduce myself. My name is Koga and this is," Koga introduced himself. The old man placed his hand on the boy with blue hair, "And this is my student, Choujirou."

The boy named Choujirou peered from his teacher's leg and took a good look at the other child that looked his age. Choujirou quickly bowed his head, "Hello." He greeted sheepishly.

Naruto first looked at the blue haired boy, which resulted in Choujirou swinging around his master to get behind Koga. Naruto looked at Koga last "I'm Uzumaki Naruto, thanks for that glowing hand thing." Naruto said.

Koga looked at Naruto, his eyes snapping open when Naruto finished his sentence. "You saw that?" He questioned.

"Yeah, it was really bright and blue" Naruto said while he nodded his head feeling a bit of pride in his abilities to shock someone as old as him with them.

"You certainly are a weird child Naruto" Koga chuckled once he had recovered from his shock. "So what brings you here?"

"I was on my way to Yagura's office. Do you know how much farther I am to it?" Naruto asked.

"You have business with the Mizukage? Well I better not let you keep him waiting. His office is pretty close from here" Koga said, "I wanted to take a short walk before the meeting started but our conversation took up all my free time. Oh well! Better luck next time, right?" He said as he laughed heartily to himself.

The old man guided Choujiro back down the hallway in the same direction as Kisame. "It was nice meeting you Naruto, I hope we can talk like this again!" Koga called out as he walked away leaving Naruto alone to finish his long climb up the staircase.

Once the blond was out of earshot, Choujiro looked up at his teacher's bearded face, "Koga-sensei, that boy Naruto, is he just like me? He felt like it." Choujiro said quietly.

Koga looked down at his student, "Yes he definitely is a sensor like you." Koga answered with a smile. Choujiro smiled back at his teacher with a miniscule smile.

That boy, Naruto, he definitely had to have been a sensor to pick up the chakra I put in my hand when I treated him. But if. Choujiro could pick up the fact that he was a sensor, then he must have a large amount of chakra that was enough for Choujiro to search through. Koga looked behind him.

Who exactly are you, Uzumaki Naruto?

_Scene Change:_

Naruto stepped off the final set of stairs and soon found himself in a large chamber that was fairly lit through a couple of light bulbs that was so far in the ceiling that only rays of emerald green light were seen. On each side of the chamber was a long rectangular pool that gave the impression that it was emerald green due to the reflection of the light bulbs. The manufactured rivers extend from the back of the chamber to just about a foot away from Naruto.

In the back of the room was a desk that had relatively high stacks of paper on it and a black leather swivel chair with no one in it. Behind the desk was a window that had the rest of the dragon bust; its tail reached. The ceiling of the chamber and extended on it for a couple of feet before the tip of the tail halted and decided to hang off the ceiling.

In the middle of the room was Yagura looking at Naruto with the same relaxed face that he had when he first met him, but it was slightly more tense. "Hello Naruto" Yagura said with a smiled. "How was your first day of training?"

"Terrible, Harusame-sensei worked me like a dog!" Naruto complained as he shuddered to himself as he remembered the training he had to endure.

This caused Yagura to only smile slightly larger than before, "I'm glad to hear that." Yagura said. The Mizukage proceeded in taking out an elegant scroll from his sleeves with blue swirling details on it. "Naruto I have something I would like to share with you."

"What is it?" Naruto asked.

"Naruto, this is a secret that only I and the Hokage know about. You are the sole survivor of the Uzumaki clan." Yagura announced to the blond.

Naruto was left in a daze, he was apart of a clan. He had a family, but then his mind went to the beginning of Yagura's announcement he was the sole survivor. He knew that once again he was alone.

"What happened to the rest of my clan?" Naruto finally asked. He had to know what happened to his recently found family.

Yagura sighed "They were killed during the night when the Kyubbi attack Konoha 7 years ago." The Mizukage said.

Naruto looked down at his feet as he took some time to ingest this information. "So, I am alone." Naruto whispered to himself.

Yagura looked at Naruto and walked over to him. Once he was close, he placed his left hand on Naruto's shoulder. "Naruto you're not alone, I'm here. And will help you awaken your full potential." Yagura said to cheer up Naruto with smile.

The blond looked at Yagura as if he wanted to hear more of what the kage had to say. "Your clan, Naruto, has a special ability that no one has. Every clan has one ability that makes them different, they are called Kekai Genkai." Yagura explained. "And your clan has one."

Naruto's face brighten up, "So I have an ability?" Naruto asked.

Yagura took his hand of the boy and placed it back into his cloak. "I'm not too sure, that's why I'm going to attempt to awaken the power inside of you." Yagura continued. "With any luck, you're powers will have been awaken just like your abilities to use chakra did."

It was then that a thought crossed Naruto's mind. "Yagura, I have a question." Naruto began to say. He stopped to see if the Mizukage had any objections to his question, but the kage remained mute. "When I tried doing the baton thing, something weird happened with my eyes. Everything seemed more colorful than before."

"That is how chakra users see the world. Once a shinobi uses chakra for the first time, their senses become sharpened than before thanks to the chakra that's pumping more harder in their bodies." Yagura explained. But his explanation only gave the blond child a headache. "This means that you're on the verge of unlocking your powers."

"Whats left for me to do?" Naruto asked now more pumped than ever that he was about to have something of his own.

"Naruto, I'm going to have to ask you sit cross legged like you did with Harusame in the circle over there." Yagura instructed the blond to the circle with characters written around the circumference of the circle.

"Man! Not more chakra training!" Naruto whined as he followed the instructions that his new guardian gave him. He sat where he was directed, in the position he was in while he was training with Harusame.

"Its pronounced chakra, Naruto. Now close your eyes and clear your mind." Yagura finally said. Naruto gradually shut his eyelids and focused on clearing his mind. The process took what felt like an hour. Once he know that the new kiri citizen's mind was empty, Yagura placed his hand upon Naruto's forehead.

"**S****eishinteki Kakumei** " Yagura whispered as he sent out a small, quick blast of chakra into Naruto's head instantly knocking him out. Once he knew that the boy was unconscious, he withdrew his hand from the boy's head. Yagura looked down at the circle around Naruto and saw the characters slowly radiating with a slow pulsing red light. So its begun, the Mizukage thought.

_Scene Change:_

Naruto awoken suddenly, the blond stretched his arms and yawned loudly. He looked around him and found himself in an empty forest at the dead of night. "Where am I?" Naruto asked himself as he got up. The blond began walking forward gingerly in order to figure out where he was. He had a hard time figuring out where he was and how he got here in the first place. Yagura told him to sit down and then felt himself lose conscious.

Naruto walked for minutes and found himself in the last place he would expect: The gates of Konoha. Naruto felt a tear fall down his cheek, "I'm home." Naruto whispered. He ran full speed into the village, he was home he was finally home! Naruto passed the gates and noticed that no one was watching the entrance. He passed through house after house trying to reach the Hokage's Mansion. None of the houses were lit or looked as though anyone was home, but he didn't care! As long as he was with the old man, Naruto could care less.

Naruto noticed a large group of villagers standing in front of him holding multiple torches. The glow of the torches dimly lit the faces of the villagers. They all gave Naruto had stone cold, emotionless glance.

"What are they doing?" Naruto asked himself. He noticed that the other villagers held pitch forks and other sharp household tools. Their faces gradually transformed from cold and emotionless to burning anger towards the blond. This burning hatred was so intense that Naruto began taking steps away from the villagers. But as Naruto attempted to widen the gap between him and the villagers, they would follow with two steps forward.

When the recently angry villagers got to a distance that was too close to Naruto, it gave him an uneasy feeling of fear. An emotion that he was well acquainted with during his life in Konoha. The blond turned to run down the street on his right where there were no villagers in sight, but just as he started his run a kitchen knife flew the the sky and land an inch away from Naruto's foot.

Naruto looked at his foot and yelped in pain as the knife nicked his ankle. The blond continued his run, with his first step it signaled every villager from the large group to pursue the boy in an uproar of shouts at the blond.

"Kill the devil child!" A man yelled from the group.

"Leave us demon!" Another one bellowed.

Naruto wanted to know what they were all talking about and why they were calling him a demon. But he knew that if he turned and asked, he would only kill himself. The blond ran down the street as fast as his little legs can carry him, he ran and ran his heart beat raced ecstatically through each quicken stride. He turned a corner and found the villagers still on his tail.

The blond found a stack of barrels near on of the houses he was seconds from passing. Naruto sprinted to the barrels and knocked them down on the floor. The containers broke upon impact on the ground. The villagers hoped back to avoid getting struck by the falling barrels. Naruto took the opportunity to run away from the mob of villagers, who threaded a long line of curses at the boy as they each carefully crossed the broken remains of the barrel.

Naruto ran and ran through the village and made a hard left through an alley. The boy knew that the mob was once again chasing him. Suddenly Naruto felt pain flush through his body coming from his left side. As Naruto ran, he looked at it and found a knife lunged into his side that had the tip of the blade inside him. Naruto screamed in pain as he ran, his footing faltered enough for the mob to regain there momentum on the chase.

Naruto turned a corner and ran, tears streaming down his face as he ran. He noticed that the building in front of him was his old apartment building that he was the only one living in. He dashed in the building before the villagers had time to catch up.

Naruto fumbled his fingers on something to barricade the door. He looked through the room frantically. His eyes fell on the heavy bookshelf next to the door. Naruto threw his weight at the bookshelf to knock it down. The first blow caused it to waddle slightly, Naruto banged his weight again as he heard the villagers gather at the door. This time the bookshelf fell down scraping the wall and landing diagonally.

The villagers banged the door viciously, but couldn't open it. Each bang caused Naruto to flinch, the boy looked at his wound and pulled the knife as hard as he can. The blade came out a long with a fountain of blood oozing from the wound. Naruto snatched some dirty newspapers on the floor that the villagers through at Naruto threw his window along with rocks. He got some newspapers and pressed it on his wound, the blood easily oozed through the papers.

Naruto threw the papers aside and picked up a new batch, but the end result was the same. He attempted this process again and again only the sound of the tousling of newspapers and the angry hits on doors covered the loud crying noises coming from Naruto as tears fell down his eyes.

"WHY DO YOU HATE ME?" Naruto bellowed at the top of his voice.

_Scene Change:_

Yagura walked briskly down a hall, as he hurried to his meeting with the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist. He had to finish this meeting up quickly to get back to observing Naruto. The Mizukage had entered Naruto into a coma-like state as a method to draw out the blond's hidden abilities. Its a dangerous procedure that places the target under a heavy genjutsu that will make the user's worse nightmares appear as they sleep. At the same time, its the quickest method for him to grow stronger.

If anything goes wrong his Mizu Bunshin will handle it. Until then, he will try to proceed his meeting as soon as possible. Yagura turned into a room on his right, the room was quite large and lacked windows. It had a long rectangular table that was standing horizontal, there were 2 of the swordsmen of the mist on each side of the table. Chiasa and a women with sky blue hair were on one side. The woman had a red line of hair sticking out of the blue sea of hair.

Across from the woman were Kisame, man with tan skin and bandages wrapped around his face, and a young man about the age of 18 with sun bleached hair. At the end of the table was Koga humming along with the music that was playing in his headphones while Choujiro was pulling his teacher's sleeves to alert his master of their leader's presence.

All of the swordsmen looked at Yagura as he entered the room and planted himself at the head of the table. "Now that I am here, we can now begin the meeting. Is there anyone with a report that is significant enough to be shared?" Yagura asked quickly. The Mizukage looked at the Swordsmen of the Mist, he noticed that Koga's humming became lower, Kisame was rocking his chair back and forth, Chiasa was lost in her adolescent thoughts, and Zabuza looked as though he was close to falling asleep. The only people that were looking at him attentively was Haruo and Manami.

Zabuza rose his hand lazily in the air finally breaking the silence of the room, "According to the reports of our look outs, there aren't any regarding the topic of Raiga; former member of The Seven of Swordsmen of the Mist." Zabuza said.

Yagura sighed as he heard a dead end of his search of for the final member of the Seven Swordsmen. "We also have no leads from our allies in the Hidden Volcano village nor the Hidden Sunflower village." Manami added in.

Kisame rolled his eyes, "What the hell do expect from those weaklings, they can barely pay taxes let alone watch out for someone like Raiga." He snorted.

Chiasa slammed her hands on the table and jumped out of her seat, "Do not talk to Lady Manami like that, Kisame!" The teenager warned.

"Or what? The broad won't lift a finger to me while she's in this form, if it was day time maybe I would've gotten a more satisfying reaction." Kisame said with a sneer.

Chiasa clenched her teeth, just before something else occurred Manami rose her hand to stop the teenager. "Chiasa you must hold your tongue in a meeting. If you do as I say, I'll take out shopping again."Manami suggested. Chiasa looked at the woman whom she inspired while it was night time and was in this form. The teenager pointed her nose in the air and slumped back into her chair and crossed her arms.

Kisame pulled his head back and laughed, his laughter crackling throughout the room. "Looks like night time Manami can be scary too!"Kisame teased.

Manami rolled her eyes and looked back at Yagura, "Please proceed Mizukage-sama, I apologize for the inconvenience." she said.

But the apology reached the deaf ears of the Mizukage, who was lost in deep thought. The young kage was more occupied with wondering if a certain blond child was coping okay in the genjutsu he was in.

"Yagura-sama, are you okay? Your mind seems to be drifting away somewhere else." Koga said as his words strangely matched the speech patterns of the song he was listening to.

Yagura looked across the table to see the old man looking at him with curiosity in his eyes. The Mizukage rubbed his eye lids with the backside of his left hand to shake himself out of the thoughts. "I'm fine Koga, thank you for your concern." Yagura replied. "Please keep me informed with all findings from our search from Raiga."

All the swordsmen gave a sharp nod in confirmation, minus Kisame and Zabuza who looked as though they couldn't care less. "I have an announcement, we have a new resident living in the Water Tower. His name is Uzumaki Naruto." Yagura announced.

Every swordsmen, minus Haruo and Zabuza had a look of shock on their face. Chiasa squeaked in pure excitement "Yay! Naruto-kun is going to be living with us!" The teenager said to Manami. "Maybe we can have him live with us!"

Manami smiled back at the teenage swords woman, "Yes Chiasa that will be delightful. I have yet to introduce myself properly to him." She chuckled lightly, "He probably wouldn't notice me if he sees me now, remind me to pay Naruto-kun a visit in the morning."

Chiasa nodded sharply, "Hai!" She said with a goofy smile.

Across the table Choujirou lightly tugged at his teacher's robes "Koga-sensei, Naruto-kun will be living here?" He asked sheepishly.

Koga looked down at his student, "Yes he will be. Maybe I can make time for you two to train together with Utakata." He nodded with a smile, Choujirou face began to glow as he smiled back with a small timid smile.

Kisame gritted his teeth as he heard the news, "So the brats living here, perfect!" He said sarcastically.

Yagura coughed lightly to get the attention of the Seven Swordsmen, "Uzumaki Naruto will be training here as well with Harusame's student: Ogawa Utakata. You are welcome to apply assistance to his training, but you must notify me first." he continued.

This made Chiasa heart beat quicken by a large amount. "That means he'll have no choice to do what I say!" Chiasa exclaimed with a smile, "I wonder during training I could make him wear a onesey! But I wouldn't be able to take him seriously enough to train Naruto-kun!" The girl's face was blushing madly as he remembered the cuteness of the blond child.

"You have yet to complete your training as a full fledged member of the Seven Swordsman, Chiasa-san. Just because you are a month away from being a member doesn't give you the ability to instruct Naruto's training." Yagura said simply. Chiasa began crossed her arms and began to pout silently. 

Suddenly, Yagura felt a giant surge of chakra ripple through the building. It caused the kage to flinch drastically. The force was overwhelming, it felt as though someone with large weights was standing on his chest. The young man at first recognize the intense chakra he was detecting because of the strength of the presence but he felt a slight essence of the least expected person to have own that chakra:

"Naruto...?" Yagura whispered to himself. The Mizukage looked across the table to see if anyone in the room sensed the chakra. The swordsmen all tensed up as they saw their leader's face widen in shock. He looked across the table to see Koga attempting to soothe his student. Choujirou was shaking madly as the intense chakra enveloped the meeting room. The boy gripped his head and began rocking himself, whispering:

"Whose chakra is that? That couldn't be Naruto-kun's chakra, it couldn't!" the boy whimpered

Yagura almost forgot that Kondo Choujiro was also a sensor like him. Unlike him, Yagura has been in many battles before and sensed chakra like this before. What surprised him was this level of chakra was emitting from the small blond child he left upstairs. _It seems that the student takes much from his master_.

The kage shot up from his seat in a flash, "This meeting is adjourned!" he quickly said.

"What's wrong Yagura-sama?" Haruo asked in a low voice.

"A matter that demands my attention has occurred, we'll continue next meeting" Yagura replied as he briskly walked out of the room leaving the swordsmen to themselves. He quickened his walking to reach the room faster. As he walked up the stairs he noticed the chakra's pressure was drastically increasing as he walked closer and closer to his office. _I hope I make in time before Naruto's new powers crushing him internally_.

Scene Change:

Naruto's blood soaked his hands as he spent his last minutes in his apartment building. The abandon building in the outskirts of the city where people in Konoha saw that as the den of the demon of Konoha. He didn't wan this at all, why couldn't he be like the other kids in the village; kids that had a parents, kids that have to steal food from others to survive, kids who have a warm house to live in, kids who don't have to worry about dying each day; why can't he be normal?

A large bang resonated throughout the building causing Naruto to jump back. The bookshelf that he used to barricade the door began shaking under the weight of the villagers trying to knock it over. It wouldn't be long until they enter the room to kill him. The door shook from another furious strike from the villagers enough for the door to creak open slightly. A villager's hand reached from the small gap and attempted to push the bookshelf off the door.

Naruto began to slightly retreat from the his spot as more hands reached to push the bookshelf off the door. With each crawl away from the door, the pain in his body began to radiate more intensely. He barely crawled a foot before the pain became unbearable and caused him to stop retreating from the door. "I'm going... to die..." he whimpered to himself. The blond noticed that a large object, the size of a man was beside him. Naruto looked at the man to notice that the mysterious person was dead. The blond noticed that he was wearing a garment that he knew all to well. The man had white robes with small red outlines.

_No, it couldn't be!_ Naruto crawled towards the man. He gritted his teeth to muffle his pain. He didn't care how much pain he was in, he had to make sure that the nonliving man wasn't **him**. Finally, after eye blinding pain from crawling towards the dead man he reached him. The blond quickly turned the man to have the man's face looking upwards at the ceiling. The minute he did, Naruto felt all life flushed out of him. Everything went quiet even the banging of the villagers. No, no, it couldn't be him... what's that knife doing in his stomach...why is he dead? 

The blond sobbed loudly "OLD MAN!" Naruto yelled as the villagers erupted from the room. Time slowed down as an endless river of tears came down his face, he felt alone. No one was with him, he wanted to run but the villagers were going to kill him. He was mad that he couldn't run away because of the villagers. He had lost the one thing that was precious to him: someone that he saw as a friend. 

Naruto roared in anger at the villagers. Suddenly he felt a strange pull coming from his stomach, it was similar to the feeling that he experienced during his training with Harusame but was far more intense he felt as though the pull was like a vacuum threatening to engulf him in whole. He didn't care if he was engulfed, he didn't care anymore.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" Naruto screamed as he put his hands outwards to keep the villagers away from him.

_Scene Change:_

Yagura took long strides to get to his office, as he closed in on the room he noticed the pressure he had experienced earlier was magnified. It was getting dangerous and Yagura knew it. If he didn't get in the room quickly enough there was a good chance that Naruto will perish due to his newly unlocked powers. "I have to hurry! Yagura said to himself.

Yagura climbed that last set of stairs and what he saw shocked him. Naruto was sitting on his knees in the circle that he drew looking up at the ceiling. His head was looking up at the ceiling. A strong blue light was radiating from the circle around Naruto, the light was so strong it seemed as though a pillar of light was shining from the sealing circle he drew.

The Mizukage felt massive chakra hailstorm coming from the boy in the circle. A strong wind suddenly picked up whistling pass Yagura who had to put his hands in front of his face to protect himself from the wind whipping his face. The wind even rippled the pools of water in his office, Yagura looked Naruto with a sense of marvel. _This power is incredible, to think that the Uzumaki clan was this power_, Yagura marveled mentally.

"Naruto, its me Yagura!" Yagura called out to the boy, "You can stop now, that's enough!"

Naruto whipped his head towards the direction of the Mizukage. It was then that he noticed that his eyes were different. The irises had 3 black curved lines that came in from the top corners of his eyes and the bottom of his irises. The color of his eyes were different, instead was a cross between blue and green. "LEAVE ME ALONE!" Naruto roared suddenly. The gale-storms suddenly increased drastically, Yagura winced at the force of the pressure Naruto's chakra was giving off. The blond made a pushing motion with his hands and suddenly a beam of blue light shot out of the boy's hands. The blast of chakra sped at Yagura at break neck speeds.

Yagura jumped backwards to get room to plan out his defense. He flashed through hand signs and took a large breath inwards sucking in a large collection of water coming from the pools of water " **Suiton: Suijinheki!**" Yagura said. The kage released the water from his mouth and exhaled it out towards the ground to form an aquatic barrier around him. The beam of chakra struck the torrent of water, the water shuttered from the impact, threatening to allow the blast of chakra to strike the kage.

Yagura closed his mouth, allowing the water to die out and side steeped the bast before it struck him. The blast of chakra exploded behind Yagura as he went through another set of hand signs. "**Suiton: Ika Shokushu no Seigen**" the water that was used to create the barrier of water arose from the ground and formed 4 squid-like tentacles.Before Naruto had a chance to retaliate, the tentacles shot outwards at Naruto, each body of water securing Naruto in place. The boy struggled out of his bonds but to no avail, he stayed restricted.

Yagura ran up to Naruto and focused on the ram hand sign he was making, focusing a significant amount of chakra into the hand sign. When he was close enough, Yagura brought his chakra coated hand towards Naruto stomach and struck his stomach "**Kai!"** Yagura bellowed as the blow sent a wave of his own chakra into Naruto's chakra system overloading it. Naruto slumped into unconscious, when he did so Yagura released the jutsu that was binding the boy. Before Naruto hit the ground, Yagura reached around him to stop him.

The boy was resting easy now and the atmosphere of the Water Tower seemed to have reverted back to normal. "Naruto, was this the power f your family?" Yagura asked the blond but the child was fast asleep to answer the question. He noticed that Naruto had tears coming down his face. It's a common effect for someone who goes through this technique. They go through a nightmare that will either cause a kekkai genkai to awaken or cause them to go insane.

Yagura felt something in his robes suddenly slide open, the kage reached in his robes to pull out the object to find the scroll that the Hokage had given him. A portion of the scroll could now be open. Yagura opened the scroll to as far as it could before he got shocked. The Mizukage looked down at the scroll and found a passage next to a generic drawing of a man's upper body. 

_This is the power of those who can see aura itself, this is the power of the Kigan eye..._

That was all the kage could read, everything else was a blur. He knew for a fact that only the boy could read this scroll's further content. He noticed that the generic drawing next to the long passage had the same eyes that Naruto had. "The Kigan eye, the power to see aura. That is your power, Uzumaki Naruto." Yagura said as he picked Naruto up and began to carry Naruto towards the bedroom where his bags were.

**ROFLSun: Well isn't that a nice way to say sorry for not updating in a year. Again I'm sorry and please review, in the next chapter we will further venture into Kiri. Be prepared to see new sites of Naruto's new home. Don't forget to check out the first episode of my abridged ****series**** of Kekkaishi by clicking the link here:**

.com/watch?v=VpljolR2am4

**Please Review!**

-Jutsu Library-

**S****eishinteki Kakumei(Mental Revolution)-** Places the target in a genjutsu that brings nightmares to life, it's usually used to bring out dormant powers.

**Suiton: Suijinheki(Water Release: Water Encampment Wall)-** This defensive technique creates a wall of water around the user. Enemy attacks are completely intercepted by a fence of water blown out from the mouth, and is raised from below with tremendous might.

**Suiton: Ika Shokushu no Seigen(Water Release: Squid Tentacle Restriction)-** This restricting jutsu creates as many tentacles of water as the user needs to restrain the target from moving. It can also be used impale a target.


End file.
